Industry News
Only 9 state schools make top 50
Posted on 20th November 2007
Only nine state schools have made it into the top 50 of a new list of Britain's best schools.
The 2007 Sunday Times Parent Power table lists the best schools in the country based upon the proportion of top grades the schools achieve at A-level and GCSE.
Each of the nine state schools which made the top 50 were grammar schools which are allowed to select pupils on the basis of ability, and no state comprehensives made the top 100.
However well state grammars are performing, analysis by the Sutton Trust suggests their pupils are struggling to imitate private school success in admissions to top universities, the newspaper warned.
Oliver Blond, headteacher at Henrietta Barnett, told the Sunday Times his school could help pupils prepare better.
He said: "Oxford and Cambridge seem to take pupils who are intellectually curious, well read and have a passion for their subject. Independent schools have more opportunity to deliver these characteristics."
Liberal Democrat leadership contender Nick Clegg recently said he would put education at the centre of the party's policies and raise state funding to private levels, with a particular focus on funding poorer children.
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