Top fee-paying schools' results slip

Westminster School: One of the best

Fee-paying schools in the UK increased their average A-level results performance again this year - but the top schools have done less well than in 1999.

Provisional figures released by the Independent Schools Information Service (Isis) show that the 31,921 candidates averaged 22.56 points this year, compared with 22.18 last year.

Thirty-six per cent of the exam entries at the 514 schools represented by Isis were awarded grade A, up 1.2% on last year.

Across all independent and state schools the rise, in figures released by exam boards last week, was much smaller - just 0.3%, to 17.8%.

In calculating candidates' achievements the information service uses the standard points score applied by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, Ucas.

This assigns 10 points to an A grade and eight for a B, down to two points for grade E. The AS-level points are half those for A-levels.

Winchester top again

The top-scoring independent school was Winchester College in Hampshire - where fees are more than £15,000 a year for boarders.

Last year's runner-up, St Paul's School, has been pushed into third place by its London rival Westminster.

But all three schools have done less well than last year.

Boys top

At Winchester, pupils gained on average 32.76 points. But those who sat the exams last year managed 34.1 points.

Westminster's pupils scored 32.65, down from 32.7, and those at St Paul's managed 31.61, down from 32.8.

Eton College, which Prince William recently left with an A, B and C in his A-levels, moved up one place to 19th this year with a score of 28.5.

The results are not broken down by gender as the overall national statistics were - revealing that girls were now doing better at A-level.

The best-placed girls-only school was North London Collegiate in Edgeware, ranked fourth with an average of 30.8, although that too was down very slightly on last year.

The points scores in the Isis list do not match the official figures produced by the Department for Education at the end of the year, on which BBC News Online's league tables are based, because different criteria are used.