Teenagers in Sussex were today celebrating another year of record GCSE results, bucking a national grade slip.

Headteachers and exam boards in the county were last night reporting their best results as pupils waited to find out how they had done.

Nationally, the proportion of students gaining one pass or more dropped from 97.9 per cent to 97.6 per cent.

But the number of students gaining A* or A grades was up 0.3 per cent, with one in six pupils scoring the top grades.

Peter Evans, headteacher at Cardinal Newman School in Hove, said: "Our results at this stage are looking very good and a large number of students have done extremely well."

At Roedean, in Brighton, girls celebrated another record year with all 69 candidates gaining seven or more GCSE passes at grades A* to C. Two thirds of those were grades A* or A. One pupil gained 11 A*s while a further 18 scored nine or more A* or A grades.

At St Mary's Hall in Eastern Road, Brighton, there was a 100 per cent pass rate in all 11 subjects with 96 per cent of students gaining A* to C grades.

At Warden Park in Cuckfield, 73 per cent of students attained five or more high-grade GCSEs. Seven students got A* or A in every subject.

Headteacher Steve Johnson said: "Qualifying in up to nine different subjects is tough. Success depends on developing a very broad understanding and wide range of skills, not to mention the high level of organisation needed to keep on top of it all."

Nationally, boys are still trailing girls although the gap narrowed slightly from 53.4 per cent hitting C and above to 53.6 per cent.

The girls' performance remained unchanged with 62.4 per cent scooping the top three grades.

Maths had the largest number of entries although the number of people sitting in English has increased by more than three per cent. There was also a rise in the number of students sitting biology, chemistry and physics but the biggest increase was in religious studies, with an extra 7.9 per cent sitting the exam.

Standards in English and maths have shot up in Sussex despite failure to improve them nationally.

In Brighton and Hove, results for 11-year-olds in English rose by two per cent while there was no change nationally and reading test scores had gone up three per cent compared to one per cent across the country.

At Key Stage 4, science passes for 14-year-olds have gone up four per cent against a national average of one per cent. Maths also went up four per cent although English was in line with the national improvement of one per cent.

Pat Hawkes, schools councillor for Brighton and Hove City Council, said: "Key Stage results are a useful measure of how our pupils are developing, and evidence our schools are working hard and heading in the right direction."

In West Sussex, at Key Stage 2 English, schoolchildren achieved 77 per cent, while the national average was 74 per cent.

Results were 90 per cent in science as opposed to 86 per cent and in maths the result was 73 per cent - the national average being 72 per cent.