page_title: County Durham
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: County Durham / Education
caption_attribution_description: Main entrance to Queen Elizabeth sixth form college, Darlington
context_page_description: County Durham is a county in North East England. The county town is Durham, a cathedral city.
  County Durham can refer to the modern ceremonial county, the smaller area of a unitary authority, or the historic county with different boundaries. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is Darlington, closely followed by Hartlepool, Billingham and Stockton-on-Tees. It borders Tyne and Wear to the north-east, Northumberland to the north, Cumbria to the west and North Yorkshire to the south. The area of the unitary authority, Durham County Council, does not include Darlington, Hartlepool or Stockton-on-Tees. The historic county's boundaries stretch between the rivers Tyne and Tees, thus including places such as Gateshead, Jarrow, South Shields and Sunderland, but do not include the part of the modern county south of the Tees.
  During the Middle Ages, the county was an ecclesiastical centre, due largely to the presence of St Cuthbert's shrine in Durham Cathedral, and the extensive powers granted to the Bishop of Durham as ruler of the County Palatine of Durham.
context_section_description: Durham LEA has a comprehensive school system with 36 state secondary schools (not including sixth form colleges) and five independent schools (four in Durham and one in Barnard Castle). Easington district has the largest school population by year, and Teesdale the smallest with two schools. Only one school in Easington and Derwentside districts have sixth forms, with about half the schools in the other districts having sixth forms.
  The University of Durham is based in Durham city and is sometimes held to be the third oldest university in England.
caption: Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington
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