The sixth form in East Ham that gets more Russell Group offers than Eton

Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre (NCS) outperformed Prince William’s, Prince Harry’s and Boris Johnson’s old school for top places in the last three years.

Between 2018 and 2020, NCS received 853 offers from Russell Group universities, which was more than Eton, according to freedom of information data obtained by The Telegraph.

The sixth form in Barking Road was among 15 state schools nationally that get more offers to the country’s top universities than Eton College, that newspaper’s analysis suggested.

NCS headteacher Mouhssin Ismail said: "Given that many of our students come from disadvantaged backgrounds, to be outperforming the elite at Eton is nothing short of miraculous.

"Unlike the other schools on the list, our numbers on roll are significantly closer to Eton, which makes this achievement all the more remarkable."

Some other schools on the list had up to 2,000 pupils in the sixth form while, according to government data, NCS had 637 on roll in 2020/21.

Mr Ismail said: “If you drill down on the data in reality, proportionally NCS is among the very top performing in the country.

“Considering the amount of students we have, our average grades are significantly higher than even the very best sixth forms on this list.”

NCS was also the best performing state school in the country for sending students to the best London universities.

The sixth form topped the table for access to Kings College, University College London, Imperial College and Queen Mary’s.

Mr Ismail said: “That is a huge badge of honour.

“Many of our students are from immigrant backgrounds whose families would prefer they stay close to home, in the capital while attending university.”

The Telegraph obtained detailed information from Russell Group universities about the 10 schools they have made the most offers to between 2018 and 2020.

Combining data from the list of top schools for each university revealed 15 state schools outperformed Eton College.