EAST Sussex pupils are getting better exam results than ever before, show figures released today.

Government league tables show pupils across the county are getting brighter . . . and

passing more exams with

better grades.

Figures show 49.6 per cent of pupils in East Sussex achieved five GCSEs at grade C and above, which is well above the national average of 47.9 per cent.

Nationally, the number of

students achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C rose from 46.3 per cent last year to 47.9 per cent this year.

And students are out-performing fellow pupils in the neighbouring authority of Brighton and Hove, where results fell slightly from 42.2 per cent last year to an average of 42.1 per cent.

The top school in the county is

St Leonards College, in Hollington Park Road, St Leonards, which achieved a pass rate of 100 per cent of students gaining five GCSEs at higher grades.

This puts the college in the top 200 English schools for GCSE results.

Eastbourne College had the

second highest results in East

Sussex, with 90 per cent of students gaining five or more GCSEs at higher grades.

But statistics also showed that two schools in St Leonards were among the worst in the country for truancy rates.

Students at the Grove School, in Darwell Close, and Helenswood School, in The Cleeve, were named as having poor attendance records.

Despite this, results are on the up at Helenswood School with last year's 45 per cent of students

passing five GCSEs at higher grades up to 52 per cent this year.

But five per cent of pupils left the school with no GCSEs at all.

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