IMPROVEMENTS in GCSE results at schools in Oxfordshire have put the county in the top third of national league tables.

The proportion of pupils getting five good GCSEs last year, including English and maths, rose by 4.4 per cent from the 2009 results, to 57.3 per cent of those taking the exams.

But, although the county now ranks 45th out of 151 areas in England, 1,660 16-year-olds left state schools in the county without five good grades in any subject.

For the first time since the target was set, no Oxfordshire school fell below the Government’s National Challenge minimum standard of 30 per cent of pupils achieving five A* to C grades, including the two key subjects. But results will have to improve at both of Oxford’s two academy schools next year if they are to reach the Government’s proposed new threshold of 35 per cent.

At both Oxford Community School, which last week re-opened as Oxford Spires Academy, and Oxford Academy – which replaced Peers School in Littlemore – 31 per cent of their pupils achieved five good GCSEs.

That compared with 18 per cent of pupils who reached the same level at Oxford Academy last year, while only 11 per cent of 16-year-olds left Peers School with the same set of qualifications in its final year.

Oxford Academy principal Mike Reading said the results showed a “dramatic improvement” since its opening in September 2008.

Last week, Oxford Spires Academy principal Sue Croft said she wanted more than 70 per cent of pupils to be getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths, within five years.

The county’s best performing secondaries were Matthew Arnold School, at Cumnor Hill, and Bartholomew School, in Eynsham, where 73 per cent of pupils reached at least a C in five GCSEs.

Matthew Arnold headteacher Katherine Ryan said: “We have had great attitude from the students, support from the parents and some really good teaching.

“We try to make sure that everybody, whatever their starting point, does the best they possibly can.”

At Bartholomew School, headteacher Andrew Hamilton said the governors were keeping “a watching brief” on whether converting into an academy would bring greater financial security in the future.

Abingdon’s John Mason School was the most improved in the county, with an 18 per cent rise in the proportion of pupils getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths.

The school has now been asked to help others in the county with advice on how to achieve similar improvements, after the proportion of pupils reaching the target jumped from 48 per cent in 2009 to 66 per cent last year.Deputy headteacher Valerie Munro said: “In the past couple of years we have been much more careful in tracking our students.

“We’re constantly reassessing where they are, what they might now be capable of, and how we can help that particular child in terms of support.”

Year-on-year results also rose by 17 per cent at Chipping Norton School, and by 12 per cent at both Bicester Community College and Didcot’s St Birinus School.

For the first time in recent years, boys at St Birinus outperformed their female counterparts at Didcot Girls’ School, the county’s only single-sex state schools.

Overall, 57.3 per cent of 16-year-olds in the county achieved five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. The national average was 53.4 per cent.