A SOUTHAMPTON school has beaten some of the country's elite institutions to go to the top of the class.

For generations Harrow School, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Charter-house and Dulwich College have enjoyed recognition as being among the country's leading private schools.

But when it comes to being officially the best in the country it is King Edward VI School in Southampton that is now top of the class.

The 980-pupil school has beaten off competition from some of the country's most famous names to reach the top of a national league table of fee-paying schools.

It achieved the top spot after its record-breaking set of GCSE results this year which saw a 100 per cent pass rate and a staggering 81 per cent of students gaining grades at A* or A.

Head teacher Julian Thould said: "A lot of the school's success is down to our hard-working students.

"As a strong maths and science school all students do separate sciences and three quarters of our students do maths at A-level."

The private school's national success comes at a time when the overall performance of the city's 14 state secondary schools is below the national average, with just over four in ten pupils (42.5 per cent) gaining five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths.

Mr Thould said he was keen to work with other schools.

"We will do anything we can do to promote the city and we are proud to be in Southampton," he said.

The school, with £9,945 yearly fees, already enjoys extensive community links and partnership arrangements with primary schools.

King Edward's success comes after four schools that previously topped the league table, including Winchester College and Eton College, boycotted the tables.

They are among nearly 50 schools that have refused to supply their examination results because they believe the league tables to be meaningless.

Mr Thould said that he was himself "a league table sceptic" and had previously boycotted the tables from 2002 to 2005 because of concerns over the quality of exam marking.

He added: "We looked very closely at opting out of the tables and it is something we review constantly.

"You can't look at league tables in isolation as they don't measure intangible things like a school's ethos which is very important."

King Edward's is Southampton's oldest school dating from 1554 and was previously located in Winkle Street, Bugle Street and Havelock Road before moving to its present site in Hill Lane.

Former pupils include scientist Sir Edward Abraham, who developed antibiotics, playwright Huge Whitemore, retired High Court judge David McCarraher and former Southampton Football Club director and city coroner Keith Wiseman.

The school also saw former pupils take part in the Olympics with men's hockey player Rob Moore and gold medal winning sailor Ian Percy.