Emma MacLeod, the head teacher at HBS, which sent 27 pupils to Oxbridge this year, called on the government for more funding to help tackle shortages of specialist teachers in the state sector and “level the playing field” with private schools so that the potential of every child can be realised.

“State schools of all types have faced enormous challenges in the wake of the pandemic with limited resources and fewer tools at their disposal than their counterparts in the private sector,” she said.

“Increasing school funding would help reduce disparities with the private sector, but this should be alongside strategic support for wider challenges such as the difficulties of recruiting and retaining staff, the digital divide [which means that some children lack high-quality laptops and broadband] and school building maintenance and development. At the end of the day, it is about ensuring the playing field in every way is as level as possible.”

In the private sector, Shaun Fenton, head of the fee-paying Reigate Grammar School, named Independent Secondary School of the Year 2025 — and the school that educated the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer — said private schools stood ready to support the state sector despite financial pressures caused by the government’s removal of the 20 per cent VAT tax exemption on school fees. When he was the shadow Brexit secretary, Starmer gave a speech as guest of honour at a private dinner at his old school to help raise money for bursaries for children who could not afford the fees. (The prime minister joined the school after passing the 11-plus examination before it turned private two years later.) According to Fenton, Starmer spoke about his footballing prowess as his cohort’s star midfielder and how he learnt to love music at the Surrey school.

Private schools are willing to help train maths teachers, who are in short supply in state schools, and to support state school leaders in other ways, Fenton said. “I do not want private schools to have [only] one thing we care about — VAT. We are excited to be part of the [government’s] reform agenda and want to be part of it. We want to help all children have access to a great education,” he said.

The Sunday Times analysis of this year’s Parent Power league table reveals:

• Single-sex girls’ schools again dominate the very highest echelons of the league tables. Six of the top ten schools in the combined rankings are girls-only schools.

• Grammar schools are still the highest-performing schools in the state sector. Of the 203 comprehensive schools in the combined rankings, none make the top 100.

• London and the southeast continue to dominate. Nearly a third of the schools in the combined ranking are in the southeast – 215 out of 730 – followed by London with 143. Wales has 18 and Scotland has four.

• In private schools this summer, 49.4 per cent of A-levels were scored at A or above. By comparison, grammar schools, the best-performing state schools, had 41 per cent of A-levels at A or above and academy schools’ results rose from 25.4 to 26.5 per cent.

• The highest riser in our independent rankings is Birkenhead School in Oxton in the northwest of England, which climbed 118 places from 199 to 81.

• The biggest fallers among independent schools since last year are Rougemont School in Newport in Wales and Harrogate Ladies’ College. Both slipped 106 places; Rougemont fell to 238 and Harrogate Ladies’ to 318.

“After years of single-minded focus driving up exam attainment in state schools, it’s bewildering and troubling to see the gap widening again,” Sir Anthony Seldon, the founding director of Wellington College Education, says. “Labour would do much better enlisting independent schools in the mission of driving up attainment and educational breadth nationally rather than ostracising them. Our independent schools are often world-class, and have so much to offer the whole education ecosystem.”

Indeed many of the top schools featured in Parent Power share common features. Many have banned children from using smartphones during the school day — but are using digital teaching tools such as AI tutors to boost performance and prepare students for a world where AI will be in use in many workplaces.

While the number of children turning up regularly to school has slumped since the pandemic — the annual report from the chief inspector of Ofsted, published yesterday, said 158,000 children in England missed half their lessons last year — these top schools have attendance rates above the government’s target 95 per cent.

The highest-performing schools also say they are aiming to produce not just children who excel at exams but students who are resilient, confident and happy, kind and respectful. After the pandemic the rates of mental illness have soared among the young. Schools such as HBS have set up wellbeing centres and encourage children to view failure as a chance to learn from mistakes and do better next time, an attitude summed up by Dave Rooney, the principal of Lowbrook Academy in Maidenhead, Primary School of the Year in the Southeast 2025. Rooney says his pupils don’t say “I can’t do it”, but “I can’t do it yet”.

Separating pupils into houses — a feature of private schools that many state schools have adopted — encourages friendly competition and helps to reduce bullying, creating friendships throughout the school.

• Top 1,000 primary schools in England

Leading schools also offer a curriculum which includes arts, music, sport and drama lessons, even though such courses are being downgraded in universities. Top state as well as private schools also offer a range of foreign languages, despite a national shortage of specialist teachers, with Dartford Grammar School, State Secondary School of the Year in the Southeast 2025, starting all pupils on Mandarin at the age of 11.

Like Ashcroft Technology Academy, London, it teaches the International Baccalaureate. With an average 38 points, the academy was crowned International Baccalaureate State School of the Year 2025. Douglas Mitchell, the principal, is clear about key initiatives that have secured it the No 1 spot: the introduction of a live tracking system with an extensive database of university offer rates and typical grade requirements to provide personalised careers guidance, and the professional development of teachers.

The same is true in Wales. Cardiff Sixth Form College, Independent Secondary School of the Year for Academic Excellence in Wales 2025, has four staff in its careers department.

Independent school head teachers are reporting more inquiries from families for financial assistance to help with their children’s school fees, which are rising by up to 20 per cent from January to cover the government’s VAT hike.

At Reigate Grammar School, Fenton is among many leaders in the sector now trying to raise money to boost the number of bursaries the school can offer children whose families are less able to afford the higher fees. He will invite Starmer to the school’s 350th anniversary fundraising appeal next year. But he wants the sector to move on from a narrow focus on taxation.

“I am excited about the broadening of [the state school] curriculum to include arts and humanities, and the [government’s] focus on public speaking and debating, on mental health and on changes to school inspection … We want to be part of the solution.”

* If a school does not appear on the Parent Power league table it is most likely to be because it did not respond to our requests for its A-level and GCSE results, and the results could not be found in the public domain

School league tables 2025

Search for the best secondary schools and get tips for how to choose a good school