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An all-girls grammar school in London has kept its crown as the most successful school in the country for the seventh year running, The Telegraph’s latest league table shows.
The Henrietta Barnett School has topped the list since at least 2016, when new metrics were introduced to measure pupil performance at GCSEs.
Pupils sitting exams in the summer of 2023 gained an average Attainment 8 score of 87.5, putting it just ahead of other elite grammar schools Wilson’s School, Sutton (86.2) and Queen Elizebeth’s School, Barnet (85.2).
Of the top 20 schools in the country, 19 were grammar schools and just one was an academy, the King Edward VI School in Staffordshire.
The Telegraph’s league table is launched as the deadline for secondary applications approaches on October 31, giving parents the power to compare schools in their area.
The league table looks at three key metrics: Attainment 8, 5+ rate and Ofsted rankings.
Attainment 8 scores are calculated by combining the average results of students across eight subjects, including English, maths and at least three English Baccalaureate subjects, such as languages, history or sciences.
The 5+ rate looks at the proportion of students who received at least five GCSEs with a grade of 5 (equivalent to a B) or higher, including English and maths.
On the 5+ rate, the Henrietta Barnett School also performed best, the only school where every pupil met the standard.
The girls school, located in Hampstead, North London, was founded in 1911 and former students include Leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Evans.
In 2022, the school received a “Good” inspection outcome from Ofsted, meaning the school is the only one in the top 10 state schools not to have an outstanding grade.
At the time, headmistress Clare Wagner described the inspectorate as “not fit for purpose”.
Overall GCSE results declined this year as the Department for Education attempted to reverse some of the grade inflation seen during the pandemic driven by teacher-assessed grades.
This year, 22.4 per cent of exams in England were graded 7 or higher, equivalent to to an A or A*.
This was a decline from last year, when 27 per cent of exams received this grade but in line with the pre-pandemic result of 21.9 per cent.