County education chiefs have confirmed it has been another record-breaking year for GCSE results across secondary schools.

Kent County Council has also revealed around a third of the 31 schools controversially identified by the Government as among the poorest-performing in the country earlier this year have passed the Government’s target of 30 per cent achieving five good GCSEs, including English and maths.

The council is confident a further third of those placed on the Government’s "hit list" are likely to do so next year on the basis of the improvements made this year.

The 31 schools were told by children’s secretary Ed Balls they would have to reach the 30 per cent target by 2011 or face closure under the National Challenge initiative.

Official league tables will be published later this year but KCC says it expects at least 67.1 per cent of students will have achieved five or more A*-C grades in all subjects, an increase of about 2.2 per cent on 2007.

KCC also expects to see the percentage of pupils passing five GCSEs at grades A* to C that include maths and English rise to 50 per cent from 48.5 per cent last year.

The results mean 155 more students have achieved 5A*-C grades this year than last year while 232 more youngsters achieved 5A*-C grades including English and maths.

Nationally, the number of pupils passing five or more GCSEs in all subjects at A*to C rose to 65.7 per cent, an increase of 2.4 percent on the previous year.

Cllr Wells (Con), KCC’s cabinet member for education, said he was delighted and particularly encouraged by the achievements of the 31 schools he said had been unfairly targeted by the Government as under-performing.

"There have been improvements across the board, in terms of the overall pass rate and the pass rate for GCSEs including maths and English. It looks to us as if we will be doing better than last year and will be ahead of the national average. We can be really proud of our schools."

"Of the 31 National Challenge schools, we have about nine or 10 that are already through the Government’s target of 30 per cent and another nine or ten that will break it next year. We have a robust system in Kent and our ability to track individual pupils is the envy of many other authorities."

Of schools to have passed the 30 per cent target set by the Government, five improved their percentage score by 10 per cent.