WESTBOURNE school has ranked as the top smaller independent school in the UK in sixth form league tables published by the Daily Telegraph last week.

The league tables compare the results of all schools, regardless of whether they offer A-levels, the International Baccalaureate or the Cambridge Pre-U curriculum.

Westbourne also ranked as the best school, state or private, in the Vale of Glamorgan, better than any state school in Wales and as the second best International Baccalaureate boarding school in the UK based on the Telegraph and Times league tables.

A spokeswoman for the school commented: "With results like these, it is no wonder Westbourne graduates find the doors to top university courses wide open for them."

Eighty per cent of this year’s graduates will be heading to Russell Group universities or equivalently elite international institutions including Oxford, Kings College London, Barts and London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Exeter, Erasmus Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Madrid University. At least half of Westbourne’s graduates will study medicine, law or engineering.

Westbourne teaches the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma, widely regarded around the world as the ‘gold standard’ in secondary education, because of its rigour, breadth and international outlook, and because of the significant advantage it gives students in their university applications and interviews. The IB is also immune from the ‘grade inflation’.

Westbourne’s principal, Ken Underhill, said: “The International Baccalaureate Diploma offers a rigorous and holistic academic education which equips our students to meet the challenges of an increasingly globalised and competitive world. Our students have benefitted immensely from the IB and have performed exceptionally well. We are enormously proud of them and share in their elation and success."

Mark Peters, chairman of Westbourne, said: “That Westbourne has established itself as one of the UK’s elite schools with only our sixth graduating sixth form class is testament to the calibre and commitment our entire team.

"Leadership, teachers, staff and students alike should all be congratulated on this phenomenal achievement."