PUPILS from state and private schools across the North-East and North Yorkshire were celebrating record GCSE results, as nationally a row was developing over whether parents paying for children's education was of any benefit.

A Teesside private school pupil scored the highest humanities mark in the country and three youngsters from private schools in the region were in the top five for French nationally out of more than 100,000 pupils.

However, pupils from a top-performing state school in Durham were also in the top five nationally in individual subjects.

It comes as GCSE results nationally suggested teenagers in state schools were improving faster than children from wealthier families who pay to go private.

State grammars have now overtaken private schools for the biggest proportion scoring As, while comprehensives continue to increase the numbers getting both As and Cs.

Independent schools were said to be "furious" at the claims, which came as national figures for 750,000 candidates showed record results this year.

Announcing the national results, Dr Mike Cresswell, director general of the AQA exam board, highlighted the differences between school types.

"For the past two years, grade As have been going down in the independent sector. In comprehensives, it has been going up," he said.

The improvements in results were "due to improved teaching and more effective learning".

"If it was just getting easier to get a grade A, then the independent graph would be going up as well."

The comparison, released by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), showed far higher rates of success in private and grammar schools than in state comprehensives overall.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) condemned the exam boards' analysis as "disingenuous".

The ISC said the drop in the proportions of good grades was due to the fact that many leading private schools were abandoning GCSEs for International GCSEs, which have been likened to O-levels.

But Greg Watson, chief executive of the OCR board, which offers IGCSEs, said: "The number of schools switching across to IGCSE is really actually very small."

The state-funded Durham Johnston School celebrated four pupils ranked among the top five candidates nationally in some subjects.

Fiona Walling and Jenna Cave were in the top five maths entrants, and Hugh Silitoe equalled the achievement in English, and Robert Walling did so in German.

The GCSE success followed another outstanding effort at A-level, which saw the school ranked in the top 50 state schools in the country.

Katie Hall, of the private Teesside High School, in Eaglescliffe, near Stockton, achieved the top humanities mark in the country.

Joseph Long, from the private Hurworth House School, in Darlington, Ronan Burrows- O'Donoghue, of Yarm School, and Sarah McGuinness of Durham High School for Girls, got three of the top five marks in the country for French.

At Durham High School for Girls, Catherine Alabaster and Alex Gillham were in the country's leading five religious studies candidates.

In Darlington, Hurworth School headteacher Dean Judson said pupils had performed so well at the state-funded school that it will feature in the top one per cent in the national value added tables - the chart which measures the improvement in children's scores from year one to GCSE level.

"I'm absolutely chuffed to bits," he said.

Schools across south Durham reported record pass rates in this year's GCSE exams, with some pupils achieving stunning individual results.

At Staindrop School Business and Enterprise College, in Teesdale, every pupil passed at least one exam and 70 per cent achieved five or more A* to C grades.

Headteacher Brian Kinnair, said: "Last year, we were in the top 15 per cent in the country, to do even better than that is incredible."

In North Yorkshire, Richmond School saw its best GCSE results for the second consecutive year