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North West England is one of the nine official regions of England. It has a population of 6,853,200 and comprises five counties of England – Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire.
North West England is bounded on the west by the Irish Sea and on the east by The Pennines, and stretches from the Scottish Borders in the north, to the Welsh Mountains in the south. The highest point in the region is Scafell Pike, in Cumbria, which is England's highest peak at 3209 feet (978 m).
Two large conurbations, centred on the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, occupy the south of the region and are its largest centres of population. The north of the region, including northern Lancashire and Cumbria, is largely rural.
Education
Secondary schools are mostly comprehensive, except Trafford retains a wholly selective school system, and there are some other grammar schools in Lancashire, Wirral, Liverpool and Cumbria. At GCSE, the lowest performing area by a country mile is Knowsley, one of the worst performing in the UK. Other low performing areas in Greater Merseyside are Halton and Liverpool. Sefton performs much better than its neighbour, Liverpool. Warrington is the best performing area, followed by Wirral. In Greater Manchester, Manchester performs the worst, followed by Salford then Oldham. The best performing area is Trafford (one of the best in the UK), followed by Stockport and Bury. In the Lancashire area, Blackpool is low performing. Bury, Cheshire, Lancashire, Stockport, Trafford, Warrington and Wirral perform higher than the UK average. At A level, Trafford performs the best, and again like GCSE is one of the best areas in the UK. The lowest performing area is, again, Knowsley but followed by Rochdale. Areas performing above the UK average are Lancashire, Bury, Wigan, Blackpool, Cheshire, and Wirral. Blackpool performs not particularly well at GCSE, yet produces much better results at A level – even better than Cheshire. |
