Some Sussex state schools have made great strides in improving their GCSE results but none made it into the country's top 200.

This year's GCSE league tables show five of the county's schools among England's most improved state schools.

Specialist school Eastbourne Technology College came 16th out of 308 schools by raising its results from 25 per cent of pupils gaining five A* to C grades in 2002 to 59 per cent in 2005.

The national average is 57 per cent.

Headteacher Janet Felkin said: "It has been a tremendous improvement and I believe we are the most improved school in East Sussex.

"We have just had to be a driving force for the youngsters and we are now providing them with the right type of courses."

Also in Eastbourne Bishop Bell CofE, a mathematics and computing specialist school, and Ratton School also made it on to the list along with Dorothy Stringer High School in Brighton and Bexhill High School.

The news was not so good for other schools.

Boundstone Community College in Lancing was the secondworst school in the country for truancy and came in 105th out of the 200 worst-performing state schools.

Only 27 per cent of pupils gained five or more passes at grade A to C.

On average 55 per cent of pupils in Brighton and Hove achieved five or more A* to C grade passes compared to 54.9 per cent in East Sussex and 55.9 per cent in West Sussex The league tables include value-added scores which indicate how much value a school has added on average for its pupils.

Councillor Rupert Simmons, Lead Member for Learning and School Effectiveness at East Sussex County Council said: "These results are due to the students' hard work, the skills and dedication of teachers, and the considerable support of both parents and governors."

The full Sussex state school league tables are in The Argus newspaper today