RECORD-BREAKING Liverpool students continue to outshine most of their UK counterparts after beating the national GCSE average for the second successive year.

Last year the city’s GCSE students eclipsed the national average for the first time.

And the city’s students have proved it was not a flash in the pan with this year’s crop doing even better and widening the gap.

Provisional results show the percentage of students managing five Cs or above has rocketed 7.6% to 73.7%.

Nationally students could only muster a 1.4% rise to 65.7%.

It means students in the city have improved by almost 40% since 2000 and are improving three times as fast as the national average.

The number of Liverpool students achieving five or more A*- C grades including English and maths is also projected to jump from 41.2% in 2008 to 45.6% this year.

Council leaders hope the figure will be close to the national average at this level with the UK figure released later this year. Last year it was 47.6%.

Cllr Keith Turner, executive member for children’s services, said the rises reflected “the huge investment going into developing a first class education service in Liverpool”.

He added: “Last year’s GCSE results saw us exceed the national average for the first time and to further improve on that proves that education here really is going from strength to strength.”