The Essex state comprehensive with the best A-level results in the country clinched its place at the top of the Guardian's league table yesterday with record-breaking performance from its students equivalent to four passes each at grade B.
And in the face of an inevitable set of solid results from the surviving grammar schools, a clutch of sixth-form colleges has surged up the table with their best results to date.
Davina Lloyd, head of the Coopers' Company and Coborn school in Upminster, Essex, admitted that the new system of modular A-levels had boosted performance by allowing students to "self-select" and drop their weaker subjects to concentrate on seeking top grades in their best, while a "stable and experienced" teaching staff knew how to get the best out of students.
Her school beat hundreds of other schools this year by achieving an average point score of 401.88, with Daniel Smith achieving six As and a further five students gaining five straight As.
The top-performing mixed comprehensive - borne from the merger and relocation of a separate boys' and girls' school in Bow, east London, in 1971 and today more commonly known as Coopers Coborn - has hovered at the top of the tables for the past five years. Now oversubscribed, last year it attracted 880 applications for just 180 places.
Dr Lloyd told the Guardian last night: "One of the reasons that the pass rate has increased at A2 [the second part of the A-level] is because we have self-selection through the modular system and better opportunities to monitor performance as students go along. The biggest surprise to me is that it hasn't reached 100% already."
With further exam changes in the pipeline, Dr Lloyd said she was in favour of keeping the A-level system, but she was also in favour of a system under which students apply to university after receiving their results.
This message was echoed by Elspeth Insch, head of the all-girls King Edward VI Handsworth school - one of a group of five top-performing schools in Birmingham celebrating after record results, with some students receiving five A grades.
Despite a 100% pass rate with 83% of teenagers achieving A and B grades, Mrs Insch said: "I have had to console three or four girls who have done exceptionally well, but have missed out on the places they were after because the competition is so intense.
"I just wish somebody would take the bull by the horns and say let us go post A-level. It is not the fault of the universities, it is just that the competition for places has changed ... There are too many people applying for courses like dentistry and medicine."
The top point score achieved by any school in the country was Colyton grammar school in Colyton, whose 82 students notched up an average point score of 514.88.
Students Hywel Carver and Jean-Luc Stevens gained seven grade As.
Tiffin girls' school, a grammar in Kingston-upon-Thames, did well despite the loss of nearly a third of the school building after a fire in December. "The results are still excellent despite the extensive disruption to teaching" said a spokeswoman, Pauline Cox.
There was good news at Armthorpe school in Doncaster, a mixed comprehensive, whose results put it in the top three in the local education authority. One pupil, Helen Turner achieved four A-levels at grade A.
Yet in July the school was put into special measures - which means it is technically failing.
Top of the sixth-form college tables for the second year running and with an average point score of 405 is Greenhead college in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where 80 students of the 730-strong cohort obtained four or more grade As at A-level. One pupil, Stephanie Illingworth, achieved six As while Elizabeth Scully gained three Advanced Extension Awards in the sciences as well as five A grades.
The vice-principal, Neil Healey, said: "It's about having brilliant teachers. They're our most important asset - not fancy buildings or labs."
The college takes 900 students every year but Dr Healey said 200 of these would not be accepted by sixth-form colleges in the country with more rigorous criteria - typically six Bs at GCSE compared with Greenhead's offer of five Cs.
And Peter Symonds college in Winchester - which has edged up to seventh position this year - was celebrating the news that neighbouring Winchester college - the boys' public school - is to "borrow" some of its teachers.
Two lecturers have been given permission from the college to teach psychology and religious studies A-levels part-time at the the public school, which recruited them to plug its A-level teaching gaps.