HIGH-FLYING schools were celebrating after coming top of the class in education tables.

The Department for Education yesterday released attainment tables assessing the achievements of secondary school students in their GCSEs last summer.

Another measure - the Progress 8 score - also analyses how students have progressed from when they started their secondary school education to when they completed their GCSEs.

The attainment tables use the scores from GCSEs which are now graded from 9 to 1 instead of A* to U.

The Progress 8 score has an average score of 0 and students making the expected progress will get a score of 0.

More progress from primary school to GCSEs and the figure becomes a positive but less and it becomes a negative.

Top of the league in north Essex were the selective grammar schools. At Colchester County High School for Girls students achieved a Progress 8 score of 1.01, well above the national average.

Gazette:

The girls also recorded an Attainment 8 score of 82.8 and all 112 pupils who sat GCSEs got Grade 5 or above in English and maths.

Colchester Royal Grammar School was second with a Progress 8 score of 0.55, also well above the average in England. It recorded an Attainment 8 score of 79.7.

The Gilberd was the highest ranked of the non-selective school in north Essex with a Progress 8 score of 0.31.

Pupils at the school achieved an Attainment 8 score of 50.7.

Clacton County High School performed well with a Progress 8 score of 0.28 and Attainment 8 score of 44.

St Benedict’s Catholic College also recorded above average progress with a Progress 8 score of 0.25 and an Attainment 8 score of 50.

Stanway, Philip Morant, Colne and Thomas, Lord Audley schools were sixth, seven, eighth and ninth in north Essex with all achieving average Progress 8 scores.

Next was Manningtree High School with a below average Progress 8 score of -0.23 and an Attainment 8 score of 47.5.

Colchester Academy also recorded a below average Progress 8 score of -0.28 and Attainment 8 score of 40.2.

Thurstable School in Tiptree, Tendring Technology College, St Helena and Honywood School in Coggeshall all also recorded below average Progress 8 scores.

Clacton Coastal Academy was second from last in the north Essex league table with a well below average Progress 8 score of -0.51. It recorded an Attainment 8 score of 33.4.

Harwich and Dovercourt High School was bottom on the list with a Progress 8 score of -0.72 and an Attainment 8 score of 38.1.

The Gazette did not include special schools’ data for the comparison.