A MAIDSTONE school was the third best performing state school in the UK based on this week's government league tables for GCSE results.

Invicta Grammar School in Huntsman Lane saw 100 per cent of its pupils gaining five A* to C GCSE grades including English and maths.

This gave the school an average points score per pupil of 710. Only Lawrence Sheriff School in Rugby and Wolverhampton Girls' High School came out better. The Maidstone school with the lowest number of pupils getting the five A* to C GSCEs including English and maths was the New Line Learning Academy. Head teacher Guy Hewett said that despite technically being an academy from September 2007 the schools had been operating as the two predecessor schools until June 2008 which brought difficulties most noticeably in terms of staffing.

He added: "Although overall GCSE results went up from a combined figure of 27 per cent to 45 per cent, despite this, English and maths continued to perform poorly, particularly at one of the two schools. This year we expect to achieve 30 per cent, including English and maths, following a successful joining of the two schools into one academy, and over 50 per cent 5 A*-C. The predictions for the following year are even more encouraging."