Editing South East England (section)

===Schools===
Buckinghamshire, Medway and Kent, and Slough have an almost completely [[Selective school|selective education system]] – not just a few [[grammar school]]s as other English areas may have – with [[secondary modern school]]s as the alternative. Kent has 33 grammar schools, Buckinghamshire 13, Medway 6 and Slough 4. The other areas are [[Comprehensive school|comprehensive]]. The top thirty schools at [[Advanced Level (UK)|A level]] are almost exclusively selective schools; one or two are [[sixth form college]]s. However, the results for each county as a whole are not always directly related to the number of grammar schools, as Kent and Medway perform below average at A-level. [[The King's School, Canterbury]] claims to be oldest in England: 597 AD. Herschel Grammar School in Slough is the most oversubscribed school in England, with 14 people per place, Langley Grammar School in Slough is next with 13 per place, then Burnham Grammar School.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9729674/Top-state-schools-flooded-with-over-1000-applications.html |title=Top state schools 'flooded with over 1,000 applications' |first=Graeme |last=Paton |date=16 October 2018 |via=www.telegraph.co.uk |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180926130928/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9729674/Top-state-schools-flooded-with-over-1000-applications.html |archive-date=26 September 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

508,000 in the region are at state secondary schools (the highest in England) with 101,000 in Kent (the highest in England for a county and completely selective) then 70,000 in Hampshire, 60,000 in Surrey, 45,000 in West Sussex, 36,000 in Oxfordshire, 35,000 in Buckinghamsire. The lowest is 6,000 at Bracknell Forest, then Reading with about 6,000. Of all regions, the South-East has the greatest percentage that attend a grammar school: 12%; the next highest is the South-West with 6%.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01398/SN01398.pdf |title=Grammar school attendance |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170630092444/http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01398/SN01398.pdf |archive-date=30 June 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> The most-educated people ([[National Qualifications Framework|NQF]] level 4 or above) in the region live in Elmbridge (51%), then Waverley, and Epsom and Ewell; 33% of people are at this level for the South-East, only second to London at 40%.

The region has the highest number of sixth formers, outside of London, in England;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s001093/index.shtml |title=Sixth formers |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030172130/http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s001093/index.shtml |archive-date=30 October 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> the highest number is in Kent, the highest for England, then Buckinghamshire (also completely selective), then Surrey. For state school pupils, there is patchy [[science, technology, engineering and mathematics|STEM]] participation. Hampshire has the most passing STEM subjects in England and in the region, followed by Kent, Surrey and Buckinghamshire. For STEM subjects, Portsmouth is lowest by some distance (6 people passed A level Chemistry) and is almost the worst in England. Southampton also gets low STEM subject results. Bracknell Forest gets low STEM results, for its economic prosperity, but does not include private schools.

For languages, the best is Kent: the county achieves the most A-level language passes in England, although Hampshire is a close second. Both counties get more German A level passes than the whole of [[North East England]]. Buckinghamshire and Surrey have high language A-level passes. Hampshire gets the most A-level passes in England (27,500), again more than North-East England (25,000). Although Hampshire is the best at languages, Portsmouth gets the fewest language passes in the region, and some of the lowest in England, with four French A levels, and has only 500 A level passes in total; next lowest are Slough, Bracknell Forest, and Southampton.

[[File:Reading School - geograph.org.uk - 902287.jpg|thumb|right|Reading School often gets the highest percentage of Oxbridge acceptances for a state school in England.]]
Reading School, a grammar, is the state school that gets the highest percentage (23%) into Oxbridge in 2010, behind 10 independents, and is also the oldest existing state grammar school in England;<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2012-0244/DEP2012-0244.xls |title=Oxbridge admissions |journal=Nature |volume=217 |issue=5128 |pages=500–501 |bibcode=1968Natur.217S.500. |year=1968 |doi=10.1038/217500c0 |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130213235210/http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2012-0244/DEP2012-0244.xls |archive-date=13 February 2013 |url-status=live |doi-access=free}}</ref> above it in the region, of the independent schools, are [[Magdalen College School, Oxford]] (32%), [[Guildford High School]] (26%) and [[Wycombe Abbey]] (25%). The [[Kendrick School]], also in Reading, gets the 4th highest state school acceptance percentage to Oxbridge (18%) and the second highest in England outside of two grammar schools in London. Of the 25 state schools in the top 100 schools getting to Oxbridge, 7 are from the region. Many people from the north of East Sussex go to Kent's grammars; some people on the London edge of Surrey attend grammars in [[Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames|Kingston upon Thames]]; and Buckingham's two grammars attract people from nearby Milton Keynes;<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.suttontrust.com/public/documents/GrammarsReviewSummary1.pdf |title=Sutton Trust }}{{Dead link|date=July 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Buckinghamshire's grammar schools get some of best admissions to Oxbridge in the UK. Surrey has twice as many acceptances into Oxbridge as the whole of Wales; acceptances to Oxbridge are concentrated in 10 counties in the South-East.

1% of those at school in the South-East gained no GCSE passes in 2010; Portsmouth was most with 2.5%, and Windsor and Maidenhead had the lowest with 0.2%. For school free school meals, the region has the lowest percentage in England with 7.2%; the highest percentage is Southampton with 17%, and the lowest is Wokingham with 3.5% (the second lowest in England after [[Rutland]]); Buckinghamshire is 4.3%, then Bracknell Forest and Surrey are 4.9%. For truancy, the highest is South Bucks at 7.0, then Canterbury 7.0, Portsmouth 6.9, Thanet 6.9, Southampton 6.4, and Rushmoor 6.1. The lowest truancy percentages are for Tandridge 2.5, Windsor & Maidenhead 2.5, and Slough 2.5.

At [[General Certificate of Secondary Education|GCSE]], the area in the South East (and England) with the highest results is consistently Buckinghamshire. Berkshire is split into unitary authorities, and Wokingham, Windsor and Slough have the next best GCSE results. All of Berkshire's unitary authorities have results above the England average, with West Berkshire considerably above average. Schools in Surrey and Hampshire also have consistently good GCSE results, and they are above average in Oxfordshire, West Sussex, Kent, Medway, and East Sussex. There are a small number of districts where results are significantly below average including the unitary authorities of Portsmouth (one of the lowest [[Local Education Authority|LEA]]s in the country), the Isle of Wight, Southampton, Brighton, and the districts of Oxford in Oxfordshire, Adur in West Sussex and Hastings in East Sussex.

There are forty-nine FE colleges in the region. The two main FE colleges are [[Northbrook College]] in Sussex and [[Basingstoke College of Technology]] in Hampshire. Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshore share an [[Learning and Skills Council|LSC]] (which fund FE colleges), and Sussex has a combined LSC. The region's LSC office was in Reading, looking after five areas.