SCHOOLS across Ryedale are celebrating their success as the latest GCSE league tables are published.

Ampleforth College came joint third in the league tables, out of all 37 secondary schools in North Yorkshire. Eighty-nine per cent of pupils achieved at least five GCSE grades between A* and C, including English and Maths. The top school was Ripon Grammar School, with 98 per cent.

Ryedale School, in Nawton, also scored well, at 78 per cent and Lady Lumley’s School in Pickering achieved 66 per cent.

The team at Norton College was delighted to achieve the highest score in North Yorkshire for the value-added measure, which calculates the amount pupils have improved between taking their SATs at age 11, and taking their GCSEs at age 15 or 16. Malton School also scored well on this figure, and was placed 11th out of the 29 state schools in North Yorkshire.

Tony Rawdin, headteacher at Norton College, said: “We are really pleased. This is the result of a lot of hard work over a period of time. Our success is down to fantastic teaching and learning and the quality of our provision.

“As we’ve had such a fantastic increase in the achievements of our pupils at GCSE, we have found that many more of them have stayed on to sixth form.”

Geoff Jenkinson, headteacher at Ryedale School, said: “It is an outstanding achievement which places us among the highest performing comprehensives in North Yorkshire, and North Yorkshire is one of the best performing areas in the country.

“These results are a real credit to the pupils, parents and teachers, and we are absolutely delighted.”

Mr Jenkinson said that the school worked hard to get children involved in extra curricular activities, from basketball to band practice, because they felt that helped children to have a positive attitude towards school, which was then reflected in the classroom.

Malton School headteacher, Rob Williams, said: “We had a disappointing year on one measure, with a number of C/D borderline students that we failed to convert to C. This is our priority for improvement.”

Despite this, the school pointed out that they had worked hard to include both very able children, and those with special needs.

The proportion of grades A* and A achieved by pupils was high at 26 per cent, and the number of pupils achieving A* to G grades, the school said, reflected the work of the special needs department.