Great results on table

The tables, published by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), show 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 shows the progress youngsters have made in maths, English and science since leaving primary school.

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

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

He said: "We are always very proud of our students' hard work and their results.

"We have always set very high standards. Those high standards we think make them feel good about themselves and that the targets we set help to get them where they are."

York's Manor School was also in the top quarter of schools nationally for the value added results, gaining an average points score of 101.2.

In the past, this information has been released at the same time as the performance tables for A-Levels and GCSEs. But this year the DfES has publishing the data late due to problems experienced by the National Assessment Agency in running the tests in English in 2004.

Head teacher at Joseph Rowntree School, Hugh Porter, said he had real concerns about the way the English tests had been marked and this had a knock-on affect on many school's results.

Mr Porter said: "The English exam papers were very badly marked, we had a significant number of ours changed and we feel there should have been a number of others changed.

"The marking of the maths and science tests was far more satisfactory, but with the English this is about the third year in a row there has been a fiasco over the marking."

Updated: 11:51 Thursday, March 17, 2005