A SIXTH form college in Brighton is the only one in the country in the top three on two key quality measures including improving students after GCSE.

Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) was ranked second for adding value at A Level and third for A level results and the principal Chris Thomson described the results as “terrific.”

BHASVIC achieved a “Value Added” score of 0.3, second only among comparable institutions to Rochdale Sixth Form College.

The mark reflects the extent to which students achieve higher grades at A Level than might have been expected based on their GCSE performance.

In education circles it is considered that “value added” is one of the most reliable markers of a school’s teaching performance, since it takes into account the likelihood of more academic students achieving higher grades.

The college also chalked up an “A Level Entry” score of 227.7, placing them third for the measure behind Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge, and St Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Harrow.

That metric is calculated based on the number of A levels taken and the marks achieved. BHASVIC’s score is approximately equivalent to all students achieving an average “B-” in their exams.

The results mean they are the only school and sixth form college to place in the top three on both analyses.

Outgoing principal Chris Thomson told The Argus: “This is a terrific record of which the city should be proud.”

“We are the only college in the country to be in the top three for both those measures.

“I think that is showing us that we’re attracting very able students, hence they’re getting very good grades, and we’re enabling them to do better than they would be predicted to do based on their GCSE results to years previously.

“So the efforts of all our staff - the teaching staff and the support staff - are enabling those students to outperform themselves.”

The results relate to last year’s summer examinations but their release tends to be delayed because it takes months for the Government statisticians to authenticate and assemble the performance tables.

In February 36 BHASVIC students received conditional offers for university courses at either Oxford or Cambridge.