THE top performing schools for GCSEs in Brighton and Hove have been revealed.

Figures released today track the county's performance in eight key subjects, including English, maths and a range of other subjects.

Added together, these produce something called an Attainment 8 score - and the higher the score, the better.

Across Brighton and Hove the average ranged from 54.3 at Varndean School to 38.2 at Longhill School.

That compared to 46.7 for pupils across all state-funded schools in England.

Nationally, students in state schools performed slightly better in their GCSEs in 2019 they did the year before, when the average Attainment 8 score was 46.4.

The Henrietta Barnett School in Barnet was the top-performing school in the country, with students scoring an average 85.1 points each.

Tauheedul Islam Girls' High School in Blackburn with Darwen was the school where students made the most academic progress across England, with a score of 2.1.

BEST 10 SCHOOLS RANKED BY ATTAINMENT 8 SCORE

1. Varndean School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 54.3

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 61.2 per cent

2. Dorothy Stringer School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 53.7

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 58.7 per cent

3. King's School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 51.8

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 51.9 per cent

4. Blatchington Mill School and Sixth Form College

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 51.6

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 57.3 per cent

5. Cardinal Newman Catholic School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 51.5

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 52 per cent

6. Patcham High School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 47.6

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 46.4 per cent

7. Hove Park School and Sixth Form Centre

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 42.7

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 41.2 per cent

8. Portslade Aldridge Community Academy

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 42.3

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 32.5 per cent

9. Brighton Aldridge Community Academy

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 41.3

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 18.2 per cent

10. Longhill High School

The Argus:

Local authority: Brighton and Hove

Attainment 8 score: 38.2

% of pupils achieving strong passes in English and maths: 26.2 per cent

What about Progress 8?

The Department for Education figures also looked at students’ Progress 8 score - a measure which monitors pupils’ progress between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4.

A school that does well here might not get the very top exam results, but they are achieving the most when it comes to students’ academic development.

A Progress 8 score of 1.0 means pupils made, on average, a grade more progress than the national average.

A score of -0.5 means they make on average half a grade less progress than average.

Varndean School had a Progress 8 score of 0.34, the highest in the region.

The data also reveals the proportion of students at each school who got strong passes of 5 or above in the 1-9 grading system for English and Maths.

In 2019, Varndean saw 61.2 per cent get strong passes in both these subjects, compared with 43.2 per cent across the rest of the country.

You can view the table online here.