A school which was at the centre of a row over its religious teaching is named among the top five comprehensives in the country, in performance tables published today.

Emmanuel College, Gates-head, is ranked fourth after seeing 98 per cent of its pupils last year achieve five GCSEs with grades A to C.

The school, which caused controversy last year over its teaching of the theory of creation alongside the theory of evolution, is also among the top 25 per cent in the country in terms of the value added to children's education.

It is the first time the secondary school league tables have taken a pupil's "value added" or improvement from ages 11 to 16 into account.

Emmanuel principal Nigel McQuoid said: "I think I'm more pleased with the value added results than the simple raw score of GCSE results."

Gateshead Council was also the top authority for GCSE results in the North-East.

Council deputy leader Ian Mearns said it was "an excellent performance, when you consider Gateshead's social disadvantages".

North Yorkshire County Council was ranked above Gateshead and ninth in the country, with 60.2 per cent of its pupils achieving five GCSEs graded A to C.

Chris Metcalfe, the county council's executive member for education, said: "These are tremendous results."

But the region also had some of the worst results. Among them was Eastbourne School, Darlington, which was ranked 182nd in the 200 worst schools for GCSE results. Only 20 per cent of students achieved five GCSEs A to C grades last year.

The school, which has been the subject of a rescue package since an Ofsted report put it in the "serious weaknesses" category, was also among the 200 worst schools for truancy.

A spokesman for Darlington Borough Council said: "A new acting head and new governing body has been appointed and we have been working with them. We are expecting to see improvements."

Durham Gilesgate Sports College and Sixth Form Centre had equally poor GCSE results and was 167th out of England's worst schools.

Durham local education authority was among the lowest in the authority tables, with 41.1 per cent of students achieving five GCSEs grade A to C.

Durham County Council education director Keith Mitchell said the council had shifted the focus from funding at Key Stage Three to GCSE level and was expecting to see an improvement this year.

* The tables do not include this year's A-level results because of last summer's grading debacle. The A-level performance tables will be released later in the year.