Swindon's teenagers are badly falling behind the rest of the country in exam results.

Results at GCSE nationally have increased for the fourth year running but youngsters here are underperforming.

There is now a five per cent gap between the town's results and the national average 44.1 per cent grade A* to C, the old O-level equivalent, compared to 49.2 per cent.

It puts Swindon, Britain's boom town, 88th out of the 150 local authorities in England.

The figures are particularly worrying coming on top of a poor set of national tests for 11-year-olds last year.

These showed that while there was an improvement, it fell well behind the national average. However, this year's Swindon figures, which are due out next month, are expected to improve and the recent tests for 14-year-olds have also shown an upturn.

The fall off in results was almost across the board, and the A-level figures showed the town two per cent below the national average.

Even at Highworth Warneford, which has topped the tables six times out of the last seven, results were five per cent down on last year.

Head John Saunders said: "Naturally I am pleased to be top, but last year's GCSE group worked just as hard as the year before. You cannot expect results to go up every year, it just does not work that way."

The top four schools are Highworth, Wootton Bassett, Ridgeway and Bradon Forest. The bottom three are Headlands, Hreod Parkway and Churchfields.

Chief education officer Mike Lusty said the results were a disappointment.

He said: "We will all be working very hard schools and the council to ensure this is a blip rather than a trend."

The feeling among education officials, heads and governors is that the year group was not as strong as the previous year, and that poorer results were inevitable.

Peter Wells, chairman of the Swindon Association of Secondary Heads said that even with such results more than half of the town's secondary schools were at or above the national average.

Unions also blamed the Swindon factor the fact that youngsters can walk into a well paid job without having to have high qualifications.

There is also concern about the Government's policy of social inclusion, whereby disruptive children are taught in mainstream schools.

Two of the success stories were Churchfields, which failed its Ofsted in the winter, and Dorcan, which improved by six and eight per cent respectively.

Both are specialist schools, Dorcan for technology and Churchfields for art, and they get extra funding and resources. Their success mirrored the national picture.

But the biggest improvement came at Crowdys Hill, which recently had an excellent Ofsted report, a special school which looks after children with moderate learning difficulties

Almost four in ten of its pupils left with at least a GCSE pass, an increase of 50 per cent on last year.

Head Keith Smith said: "We are delighted. It shows what dedicated staff and small classes can do."