Most state schools in Harrow and north Brent saw a leap in GCSE results this year.

Bentley Wood High School for Girls in Bridges Road, Stanmore, made the biggest improvement among the Harrow schools in the percentage of pupils gaining five or more A* to Cs, jumping 9.8 per cent from 56.1 per cent last year to 65.9.

In north Brent, Preston Manor in Carlton Avenue East, Wembley, leaped 12.8 per cent, from 43 per cent in 1997 to 55.8 per cent.

But others schools saw results fall. Hatch End High in Headstone Lane, Hatch End, dropped by nearly six per cent, from 63.1 per cent last year to 57.4.

Deputy head Clive Ricks said the year group did a lot better than expected. The school has been using Yellis, a system run by the University of Durham which measures pupils' improvement, known as "value added". Pupils are assessed when they start high school and again at the end: based on this, less than half were predicted to gain five or more A* to Cs.

"It is one of the most widely accepted ways of measuring value added," Mr Ricks said. "But the Department for Education and Employment unfortunately does not recognise it because Durham is the biggest critic of the Office for Standards in Education.

"We have been aware for some time this year group would not get top grades, but we predicted that less than 50 per cent would get five A* to C, so we see 57.4 per cent as quite an achievement.

"The problem with these tables is that they overlook some candidates. It's equally important for some children at the bottom range of results to get a G."

The school did, however, have some stars, including Joanna Evans who gained five A*s and five As, and Tejal Sanghvi, who got six A*s, three As and one B.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.