A failing school in London’s deprived East End which was sent into special measures by the government just six years ago is now sending all its A-level students off to university.

St Paul’s Way secondary in Bow Common had to reinvent itself as a trust school in a shotgun marriage with four universities.

It has now got through its second year of A-levels at its new campus opened in 2012, with all 24 sixthformers now beating a path to university after a pass-rate of almost 99 per cent in A* to E grades.

“We had excellent results in science and maths as well as engineering,” the school’s sixthform director of learning Paul Newbury said.

“It’s exciting that all 24 are off to uni—which will change their lives.

“They are the first generation in their families going to university.”

One of his pupils who came away with an A* and two As is going to Oxford to study medicine.

“Our students can now compete with the best in the country,” Mr Newbury added.

Another is off to Kings College London for pharmacy, two are heading to Queen Mary’s in Mile End nearby for engineering, three to Goldsmith’s for politics and history, two to City for engineering and politics, one to Brunel for maths, three to Kingston for chemistry and pharmacy, one to Ravensbourne for architecture, one to Loughborough for criminology and six to Westminster for English, pharmacy, politics and biology. Two others are going further out—one to Brighton for international business and one to Leeds for English.

St Paul’s Way hit the rocks six years ago with appalling exam results, when the Education Department in Whitehall parachuted in a task force to turn the school around.

It was teamed up with the University of East London, Queen Mary London University, King’s College and Warwick University, which all sit on the school’s governing board.

Trust school status has helped boost morale with a new academic ethos that begins from Year-7 in a completely new campus in Bow Common Lane opened two years ago and a new science research centre opening next month.