Pupils from Rhyn Park School, Steven Jones, Tom Jones, Kelsee Pugh and Lauren Harvey celebrate after their school was named as one of the most improved in the county

Shropshire schools were riding high in Government league tables today after setting more GCSE records.

The latest tables have confirmed another year of continued improvement for the county council-run schools which have achieved above national average results on all key indicators, including the number of pupils gaining five GCSEs

They show 54.4 per cent of pupils, compared to 53.3 per cent previously, achieved five or more top grades, including English and maths.

In Telford & Wrekin, 44.6 per cent gained five or more A*-C grades, including the two core subjects.

The Shropshire GCSE table is headed by Shrewsbury Girls’ High School with Moreton Hall Girls’ School, near Oswestry, second.

The highest performing school in the state sector is The Priory, Shrewsbury, which takes third place. Concord College at Acton Burnell, near Shrewsbury, is the best performer at A-level.

The Telford & Wrekin GCSE table is led by Newport Girls’ High, followed by Adams’ Grammar in Newport with Thomas Telford third.

They are also listed among the top 200 state schools nationally for their GCSE results.

Rhyn Park School at St Martins, near Oswestry, is named as one of the “most improved” in England along with The Priory.

Rhyn Park and Madeley Academy in Telford are also among the top 100 nationally for value-added scores, a key indicator of the progress pupils make from entering secondary education.

But two Telford schools, Lord Silkin and Phoenix, find themselves in the bottom 200 state schools, ranked by the percentage of pupils getting at least five good GCSE grades including English and maths

At a national level, the tables show that more than 300,000 teenagers left secondary school last year without achieving this standard. 

The Tories accused the Government of failing to meet its promises on education, while the Liberal Democrats said the results were “unacceptable”.

But Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, insisted the Government was on track to meet its target of seeing no school falling under the 30 per cent threshold by 2011.

By Dave Morris

• See tomorrow’s Shropshire Star for the full league tables.