Bury St Edmunds schools buck the national trend in league table results

Pupils in Bury St Edmunds have bucked the national trend for GCSE results with Suffolk moving up the league tables.

However, the county is still behind the 53.4 per cent national average of pupils at Key Stage 4 achieving five or more A*-C GCSE grades including English and maths in 2013/14.

The figure for Suffolk is 51.7 per cent compared to 54.6 in 2012/13 and it has climbed 12 places nationally to 125th out of 151 local authorities. The national average in 2012/13 was 59.2.

The top school in the West Suffolk area was County Upper, in Bury, which had 70 per cent achieving five or more A*-C GCSEs including English and maths. Head Vicky Neale said: “Obviously we’re delighted to be the top of West Suffolk again and, given that the exams were so much harder, to see students at all levels of ability do so well.”

St Benedict’s Catholic School scored 69 per cent. It was also in the top five comprehensive schools for A-level results nationally. It follows controversy over the school’s no-notice Ofsted inspection, which rated the school as ‘requires improvement’.

Head Hugh O’Neill said: “I think that parents are beginning to see that judgements made about schools by Ofsted are highly complex. What we do know is these results show that, for the great majority of our students, 2014 was another highly successful year.”

King Edward VI achieved 55 per cent. Head Geoff Barton said they continued to perform ‘really strongly’ at A-level with high performance by their ‘most able’ academic students. He said: “It’s helped us to see we need to do more with low and middle ability students.”

Cllr Lisa Chambers, cabinet member for education, said Suffolk had closed the gap nationally. She added: “However, we are not complacent and we know there is more hard work to do.”