Battersea’s Harris Academy has come third in England on the Department for Education’s latest performance tables.

The tables, which were published on Thursday January 19, show that the best schools are those that make the best progress in grades.

The tables include 2016’s GCSE exams and are ranked by its new Progress 8 measure, which works by comparing a child’s results in eight subjects at GCSE with the average GCSE results for other children who received the same results as that child at age 11.

By comparing children of similar academic achievement, the DfE’s aim is for schools to focus on helping all students make good progress by focusing on the work the school is doing rather than ability of the students.

The results of the latest performance tables fly in the face of the usual order, which grammar schools traditionally top.

Harris Academy Battersea, with a Progress 8 score of 1.15 comes after two faith schools. 

Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School in Blackburn comes first with a Progress 8 score of 1.37 and in second is its brother free school, Tauheedul Islam Boys’ High School, with a score of 1.15.

In London, Harris Academy in Battersea, King Solomon’s Academy in Paddington and City Academy were among the six schools across the country who recorded a progress score of more than one.

London had the lowest proportion of underperforming schools in the country with just 3.1 per cent falling below the government threshold.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said that nearly 1.8 million more children were in good or outstanding schools.

He told the Evening Standard: "As well as confirming the number of young people taking GCSEs in core academic subjects is rising, today’s figures show the attainment gap between disadvantaged and all other pupils has now narrowed by seven per cent since 2011.

However, Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, told the Guardian: "Ministers claim that the Progress 8 numbers show that educational quality is rising.

"That is far from the truth.

"Secondary schools suffer from a narrowed curriculum, from increasingly severe problems of teacher retention and an impending crisis of funding.

"It is to these issues that ministers should turn their attention."

Harris Academy Battersea and Wandsworth Council have been contacted for comment.