STAFF and students at Bournemouth School for Girls are celebrating after GCSE results ranked it in the top 50 state schools in the country.

The Castle Gate Close school was ranked 45th and also came 54th in a table of all schools, ranking it above hundreds of exclusive fee-paying schools.

It was one of four local schools to reach the Top 200 state schools league, with its neighbour Bournemouth School at 82nd, Parkstone Grammar at 119th and Poole Grammar at 144th.

Head of Bournemouth School for Girls, Alistair Brien, said: “We are delighted at this great news.

“Even within the context of being a grammar school, to be ranked 45th nationally is a tremendous achievement of which pupils, staff and parents can be very proud.”

He was one of a number of head teachers celebrating success.

Roger Allen, head of Glenmoor in Bournemouth, told the Daily Echo: “We are really delighted. We are the most improved school over four years in the town.”

He was also head of Winton Arts and Media College when the examinations were taken, where results improved from 33 per cent to 43 per cent.

Jackie Steel, principal of the Bourne Academy, said she was thrilled with the “best ever results at the site” and added: “We are expecting the trend to continue.”

Peter McNutt, Bourne-mouth council’s strategy leader for secondary schools, said: “The performance tables published today show another successful year of achievement for young people in Bournemouth’s schools.

“The percentage of students gaining the all important 5A*-C grades including English and maths has risen again and is at the highest level ever for the borough at 57.3 per cent.

“All of our schools have worked very hard to ensure a rising trend over the last four years and are very focused on achieving even better results in 2012.

“Last year the coa-lition government raised the ‘floor standard’ schools must achieve to 35 per cent. All of our schools and the Academies are above this level.”

John England, head of learning and school improvement at Dorset County Council, said: “We are very pleased in Dorset to see that the results have shown improvement on last year, above the national average.”

Cllr Janet Walton, the Borough of Poole’s cabinet member for children and young people, said: “I am pleased for the young people, their parents and carers that in Poole we have our highest results to date and that the young people in Poole have attained more than ever before.

“It is reassuring to see that Poole continues to compare favourably with the national picture.”