More primary age children are being taught at schools rated ‘good' or 'outstanding’ in Buckinghamshire than anywhere else in the south east, new government figures show.

Bucks tops the list for the whole region, which excludes London, with 90 per cent benefitting from education at schools highly rated by Ofsted – up five per cent on last year.

But the county lags behind at secondary level and comes 13th out of 19 in the south east – and a lowly 100th nationally – with 74 per cent of pupils going to good or outstanding schools.

In comparison, 80 per cent of children over the age of 11 in neighbouring Slough attend schools in the top two brackets, and 88 per cent in Oxfordshire.

Speaking after the release of today's Education and Skills Annual Report, Ofsted’s south east regional director Sir Robin Bosher said: “Overall, the South East region does well by its young people and gets the majority off to a strong start.

“We have seen some pleasing improvements in performance this year at all ages, but I am particularly happy to see a rise in outcomes in the phonics screening test, since without the basic literacy skills being checked, children are much less likely to do well later in life.

“We have put the greatest emphasis on improving outcomes for the most disadvantaged young people, where the gap between their attainment and that of others in the region is unacceptably wide.

“Inspectors have spent more time in those areas where outcomes are weakest, since we know that where we focus our work, things improve.”

Though there are no specific figures yet for Bucks alone, Ofsted says the gap between the attainment of pupils on free school meals and their peers in the south east is amongst the widest in the country at age 7, 11 and 16.

Inspectors stress that the high attainment of most pupils in the region masks “serious underperformance” of those from the lowest levels of income.

Though Bucks has seen a slight rise of two per cent in the number of secondary age pupils in good and outstanding schools, the county still sits towards the bottom of the list and sits immediately below Wigan, Stockport and Manchester in the national table.