Joy for pupils at record GCSE results

There were success stories at every school with pupils celebrating an impressive haul of grades.

Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College celebrated as more students achieved top grades in English and maths this year than ever before.

Sir John Thursby Community College added to its excellent Ofsted report by achieving its best ever GCSE results, as did Shuttleworth College and Unity College.

Hameldon Community College students were praised by staff and governors for their progress in English.

Sir John Thursby headteacher David Burton said the school’s teaching enabled 100% of pupils to achieve A*-C in Computing with 76% achieving A* or A grades. Pupils also achieved 100% in additional maths, 95% in sport, 90% in statistics and 86% in physics.

He added: “Ofsted said we are well on our way to being an outstanding school. I congratulate pupils, parents and staff on their success in English, maths, other subjects and in areas as diverse as the Duke of Edinburgh Award and our Gold Artsmark which has seen us named Lancashire Secondary School of the Year and be oversubscribed every year.”

There were similar positive remarks from Blessed Trinity headteacher Richard Varey who revealed that more students achieved top grades in English and maths this year than ever before.

There was an increase in A and A*s in both maths and English for the Catholic school’s students with exceptional results in English Literature while 84% of students exceeded their expected progress in English.

Student Hannah Kay celebrated six A*s and five As, and Eleanor Payne achieved five A*s, five As and two Bs.

Mr Varey said: “We have placed a big emphasis on our English and maths studies and we are delighted to see an improvement shown by an impressive set of results in those subjects.”

The school, which was has been oversubscribed for the last few years, continued to thrives.

“Our Religious Education results were impressive and our IT students continue to achieve high grades with 94 per cent celebrating an A*-C,” he added.

“Once again we have a high set of results which will allow our students to follow their pathways into post 16 education and training.”

At Shuttleworth College the percentage of students making better than expected progress has more than doubled in English and significantly improved in maths.

Head Ruth England said: “We also have fantastic results in chemistry, physics, biology, PE and IT again and massive improvements in art and Religious Education.

“As well as collectively, we have some fantastic individual results with many students making better than expected progress in a whole range of subjects.

“They are great foundations to build further improvement across all areas. We have new key staff coming in to expand the science and mathematics faculties and a new new leader for history and geography in September so the future is extremely bright at Shuttleworth.”

Shuttleworth student Gabriella Tuff (16) who achieved four A*s andfive As, wants to be a research scientist.

Gabriella aims to go to Burnley College to study biology, maths, further maths and physics A-Levels.

“There will be a lot of studying but it will be worth it,” she said.

Katie Barson wants to be a barrister and is taking law, psychology, French and economics A-Levels at Burnley College after achieving five A*s and five As in her GCSEs.

Ted Williams is intrigued by figures and is eager to do something involving maths in his future career.

“I would like to do a PHD in maths but have been told it’s really difficult,” said Ted, who will go onto study maths, computing, further maths and ICT in his A-Levels after achieving four As and five Bs in his GCSEs.

“I am fascinated by numbers and theories. I am still deciding whether to go towards banking or teaching. That’s one for the future.”

Hameldon Community College students were thanked for their hard work over the last two years.

This year’s provisional results show that progress in English is still one of the best features of the school and given their starting points students are exceeding the government floor targets for overall progress.

Headteacher Gill Broom said: “Once again this year’s results are a testimony to the partnership working of students, staff, families and the governing body.

“There are those in the Hameldon community who are to be praised for reaching and or exceeding their target grades, one of these being our Head Boy Elliot Matura who received seven ‘A’ grades and now moves forward to post 16 education and fulfilling his dream of pursuing a career in medicine.”

Unity College headteacher Sally Cryer said the results were “a monumental achievement”.

She said: “This is a fantastic day for everyone at Unity College. There is a relentless drive to achieve the best possible GCSE results for all the students and praise must go to the outstanding teaching and support staff at Unity College who go the extra mile for the students every day.

“The results are down to sheer hard work from the students, staff, parents and governors of the school over the last five years. Today, everyone should be very proud of what the students have achieved.”