A HIGH-FLYING York secondary school has collected a hat-trick of awards.

Huntington School is one of only 67 out of the 1,360 specialist schools in the country to have qualified for three clubs set up by the Specialist Schools Trust.

The school is now in the trust's prestigious "70% Club", their Most Improved Schools Club, and their "Value Added" School Club, for its outstanding exam results.

Membership of the "70% Club" is for specialist schools which achieved 70 per cent or more 5+ A*-C GCSE results between 2001 and 2004.

The Most Improved Schools Club is open to specialist schools which have improved by ten percentage points or more than 5+ A*-C GCSE results from 2001 to 2004.

The Value Added Schools Club is reserved for specialist schools which have "added value" - referring to the progress made by pupils from the time they arrived at the school - in terms of GCSE results in 2004.

In March, staff and pupils at the school celebrated their success in the national school performance tables.

The tables, published by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), showed the performance of state schools in the Key Stage 3 national curriculum tests taken by 14-year-olds throughout the country in the past year.

The value added element of the results showed the progress youngsters have made in maths, English and science since leaving primary school.

Huntington School, a specialist technology college, had consecutively good results in previous years, and this year topped the value added table in York with a score of 102.5, putting it in the top 25 per cent of schools nationally.

Head teacher Chris Bridge said a lot of hard work had been put in behind the scenes by staff, parents and pupils to help achieve the results.

Mr Bridge said: "We are very pleased to be in all three clubs this year. I happen to like that the Government is now measuring schools by the value that they add.

"What should matter is the journey pupils make from primary school scores to GCSE scores and if we can get about 50 to 60 students a year getting six A* - C grades they can access more courses and more careers. That's giving our children more life choices and life chances."

He said the "improved" award did not mean that the school's marks were low in the past, but that they were getting better year-on-year.

He said: "Every year the results get better and we get more nervous because it's a higher point from which to fall each time."

Huntington is not the first York secondary to be part of all three clubs. Last year Archbishop Holgate's CE School earned the same honour.

Updated: 08:30 Tuesday, April 12, 2005