SCHOOLS in Brighton and Hove are performing above the national average in GCSE subjects.

Figures published by the Department for Education for last year’s Attainment 8 scores show the city’s pupils are achieving better grades in up to eight courses.

Those subjects include English and maths, sciences, geography, history and languages.

The Attainment 8 score is the average of all the pupils at a school and it came into force in 2017.

It sees points added to GCSE grades from 1 to 9, with 9 being the equivalent of an A*.

Dorothy Stringer in Brighton is the highest ranking state school with a score of 53.5 from the 327 pupils sitting the exams.

The average score of 30 Brighton and Hove secondary schools is 46.8, compared with the national display of 44.6.

Behind Stringer is Cardinal Newman in Hove, which received an average score of 52.6.

The Attainment 8 scheme, run alongside Progress 8, aims to track the way schools develop children’s grades from Year 7 through to Year 11.

Progress 8 intends to capture the progress pupils make from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school.

Blatchington Mill in Hove is third out of the nine state secondary schools on the list, with an average of 50 points from 287 children.

Headteacher Ashley Harrold said: “At Blatch, as at every school in the city, we are very proud of the accomplishments of our students.

“The Attainment 8 measure represents the average grade achieved by all students in Year 11 across eight specific categories of subject, and was 50 points last year – compared to a score of 44.6 points nationally.

“This means that on average students achieved a strong pass grade of 5 for all of their subjects.

“It isn’t unusual for our students to achieve above national outcomes in their exams – they are intelligent, hard-working and get excellent support from their teachers and from parents and carers.”

Despite last year’s strong results, Mr Harrold and his team have continued to try to better the GCSE outcome this year.

He added: “Our school has an ethos of continual improvement and across our community we are constantly looking for ways to improve.

“We work with all Brighton and Hove schools to consider how best to support our students and benefit greatly from sharing best practice from our colleagues.

“It’s not really advisable to compare year-on-year performance in these figures at the moment, given the changes that have been made to the GCSEs in English and maths last year and in a range of subjects this year.

“But we are confident that once again students will achieve above national outcomes this coming year and we look forward to celebrating with them in the summer.”

Private school Brighton College, in Eastern Road, is top of the overall table, with an average score of 71.1 between its 213 pupils.

Brighton Aldridge Community Academy in Moulsecoomb, which used to be Falmer High, is bottom of the list.

The school, which has a Good rating from Ofsted, falls below the national average at 37.9 from 100 pupils.

League table

1. Dorothy Stringer (53.5)
2. Cardinal Newman (52.6)
3. Blatchington Mill (50)
4. Patcham High School (48.7)
5. Portslade Aldridge Community Academy 48.1)
6. Varndean High School (47.2)
7. Hove Park School (44.7)
8. Longhill High School (39.5)
9. Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (37.9)