Pupils raised in religious homes are more likely to succeed, regardless of whether they went to faith school or not, a study has found.

Research by the UCL Institute of Education found that pupils from Catholic and Church of England families did well because of their upbringing, not because of their school.

At best, researchers found, attending a religious school was associated with better results at O-Level, but did not affect how well the pupils did at A-Level or university.

For a cohort born in 1970 they analysed pupils' religious upbringing and the school they went to and found that while Christian pupils at Church of England and Catholic schools did better, this became statistically insignificant when the positive impact of their religious upbringing was factored in.

Part of the analysis found that students at Anglican and Catholic schools had approximately 1.3 times better odds of getting any A levels, but the faith the student was raised in was a more important predictor of how they were likely to do.