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North-East England is one of the nine official regions of England and comprises the combined area of Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear and a small part of North Yorkshire. The highest point in the region is The Cheviot, in Northumberland, at 815m and the principal and largest city is Newcastle, whilst Sunderland is the second-largest.
The shipbuilding industry that once dominated Tyneside suffered a terrible decline during the second half of the twentieth century. Tyneside is now re-inventing itself as an international centre of art and culture and, through The Centre For Life, scientific research (especially in stem cell technology). After suffering economic decline during the last century, Sunderland is becoming an important area for quaternary industry, science and high technology. The economy of Teesside is largely based on its petrochemical industry. Northumberland, being largely rural, bases its economy on farming and tourism. In May 2005 the 'Passionate people. Passionate places' Regional Image campaign was launched to promote North East England as a great place to work, study, visit and invest in.
Local governmentThe official region consists of the following subdivisions:
HistoryThe region was created in 1994 and was originally defined as Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and Cleveland. As part of a reform of local government Cleveland has since been abolished and several unitary districts created. The region is now considered to consist of four distinct 'sub-regions':
BiodiversityThe region has a rich natural heritage, its diverse landscape includes maritime cliffs and extensive moorland containing a a number of rare species of flora and fauna. Of particular importance are the saltmarshes of Lindisfarne, the Farne Islands (which contain rare seabirds such as the Roseate Tern and the Magnesian Limestone grasslands of East Durham - a habitat found nowhere else in the world. The North East also features woodland such as Kielder Forest, the largest man-made forest in Europe. This is located within Northumberland National Park and contains an important habitat for the endangered red squirrel. The region also contains the majority of the entire UK's population of grouse and yellow marsh saxifrage. EducationThe North East education system consists of largely comprehensive schools but with a number of private and independent schools found in Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Stockton and Northumberland in particular. At GCSE level the region performs similar to other largely urban areas and is comparable to the national average although generally results are mixed. Middlesbrough performs the worst with average results significantly below the national average for England and Wales. South Tyneside and Sunderland also perform below the national average. Stockton and Newcastle, meanwhile, perform comparable to the national average. Both Northumberland and Gateshead perform above average. Gateshead is one of the ten best performing local authorities in the country, according to GCSE results. St Thomas More R.C. in Blaydon (a voluntary funded Roman Catholic specialist technology college) and Emmanuel College (a selective independent state school) are two of the best performing schools in Gateshead. Other well performing schools in the region include Gateshead High School for Girls, Westfield School in Newcastle and Park View Community School in Durham. At A-level, local education authorities in the north east are improving at a greater rate than the national average. Darlington and Gateshead are two of the best performing local authorities at A-level, Stockton also performs above average along with Durham. Northumberland, Sunderland and Redcar and Cleveland also compare favourably to the national average. Middlesbrough is one of the worst performing LEAs at A-level in the region. The independent and private schools in the area perform highly. Newcastle Central High School and Royal Grammar School, Newcastle were both named in the top 100 independent schools nationally in 2006. Other well-performing private schools include Durham school, one of the oldest schools in England and Grindon Hall Christian School in Sunderland, a private non-selective school. Top ten schools in North East England (A level results 2006)
At the higher education level the North East contains a number of internationally acclaimed universities. These include the University of Durham, the third oldest university in England; Newcastle University, a member of the Russel Group and the newer universities of Northumbria University, Sunderland University and the University of Teesside. See also
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