News, events and schools' information for families across Bath and West Wiltshire

King Edward’s School, Bath has been ranked as one of the top performing schools in the South West, according to The Sunday Times Parent Power survey, published this weekend. For the fourth year running, King Edward’s is ranked fourth in the South West’s independent sector and is one of the top five schools of any kind in the region.

Now in its 25th year, the Parent Power survey ranks secondary schools based on the percentage of examination entries gaining A*- B grades at A Level this summer and entries returning A* or A grades at GCSE.

The survey’s findings for this year reveal that KES is:

Bath’s top performing school in the survey
One of the top 5 schools of any kind in the South West
The 66th ranked independent school nationally
One of the top 10 independent co-educational day schools in the country
The school’s external examination results last summer saw 86.3% of A Level entries gain an A*-B grade (65.1% were A* or A) and 82.5% of GCSE entries returning an A* or A grade, with 55.8% at A* alone. As a result of their A Level grades, around 90% of KES university applicants secured places at their preferred university destination, including a record 18 to Oxford and Cambridge.

Commenting on the survey’s findings, Martin Boden, Headmaster of King Edward’s School, said, “It is very pleasing to see King Edward’s ranked once more amongst the top performing schools in the South West. A strong and supportive pastoral care programme goes hand in hand with exceptional teaching here at KES, and both serve to underpin our consistently excellent results.”

Mr Boden added, “Sustained academic achievement, however, is only part of what goes to make King Edward’s such a successful school. The school’s broad co-curricular programme, for instance, offers a quite remarkable array of activities, in which ‘sport is as strong as ever’, whilst art, drama and music ‘flourish’, according to the Good Schools Guide. I don’t doubt that life at KES has never been more exciting or fulfilling, nor better set up to prepare our pupils for life beyond school.”

www.kesbath.com