Britain’s faith schools are the top performing schools in Britain, latest figures reveal.

According to The Christian Institute, more than five in 10 of the highest achieving schools in the Department of Education’s league table were Catholic, Church of England, or Jewish. This is despite the fact that just one in three State-funded school in England and Wales, and one in five in Scotland are faith schools.

Paul Barber, director of the Catholic Education Service said: “Catholic schools outperform the national average English and Maths SATs scores by six percentage points, this is an immense achievement considering our primary schools are more ethnically diverse than the average school and take in significantly more children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.”

His comments were echoed by Nigel Genders, the CofE’s chief education officer.

“Church of England schools are there for the whole community and serve children of all backgrounds,” he said. “We believe that the commitment to the flourishing of every child and the strong Christian ethos of our schools drives high standards and performance but, more importantly, promotes the well-being of all the children we serve.”

“Church of England schools are there for the whole community and serve children of all backgrounds.”

According to the Department of Education’s figures, 530 faith schools in England were in the top 1,000 schools achieving Level 4, the standard expected of the average 11-year-old this summer. All children are supposed to achieve Level 4 in reading, writing and maths.

A breakdown of figures shows 361 were Church of England, 167 Roman Catholic, nine Jewish, four belonged to other Christian denominations and one was Hindu.