There has been a slight increase in the proportion of schools and academies in England judged good or outstanding.

About 86% were ranked in these top two categories of school effectiveness by Ofsted, up from 84% in August.

Primary schools performed better, with 87% judged good or outstanding, compared with 76% of secondaries.

There are still big regional variations, with fewer good schools in large parts of northern England and the Midlands.

In these areas, there are 17 local authority areas where fewer than 60% of secondary schools are judged good or outstanding.

In the south and east of England, there are seven local authorities in this situation.

At the lower end, Ofsted said: "Primary schools continue to perform more strongly than secondary schools, and at the end of March 75% of primary schools that required improvement had improved at their next inspection.

"However, the proportion of secondary schools that improved from 'requires improvement' has increased from 45% in August 2015 to 52% as at March 2016."

The Department for Education said: "In this academic year alone 100,000 more pupils are now benefiting from attending good or outstanding schools."

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: "We are determined to spread educational excellence everywhere and today's figures reveal that we have come a long way in doing just this.

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