Ref. 28628-17STUDENTS at New College have a new £13m building, and state-of-the-art facilities and the average score of their top 100 students is 412.

This is 153 point above the national average, but overall the college's results do not compare so well.

The first batch of students to take their A-levels at the new campus scored an average of 229 points. This was up on last year's 227.5, but was still well under the national average of 258.6.

However, principal Graham Taylor said that the league tables do not allow for fair comparisons.

The college's average score suffers because of the high number of students enrolled there, he said.

Around 70 per cent of all Swindon A -level students take their A-levels at the college in Frobisher Drive, Walcot East.

He said: "If you took our top 100 students you would find that the average score was 412.

"Last year we had 517 A-level students, and because many had average scores we are not going to get a fantastic average.

"We are very pleased with the results, and in fact one of our students scored 560 points.

"Our target for next year is to achieve an average score of 239."