Whitburn’s ‘Class of 2017’ gain excellent results in new GCSE exams Posted on: 24 Aug 2017

 Congratulations to our pupils who once again gained excellent GCSE exam results despite the increased difficulty of the reformed exams in English Language, English Literature, and Mathematics. We are delighted with the successes of our pupils, especially given the more demanding curriculum and harder exams.

Fifteen of our pupils gained A*/A, or grades 7/8/9, in at least ten subjects and we have two of the highest performing pupils in England. Jenny Elder and Abbie Graham each gained grade 9 in English Language, English Literature, and Mathematics, a feat achieved by only 2000 out of the 543,000 pupils taking the new exams. Both Jenny and Abbie achieved A* grades in all eight of their other subjects, putting their performances in the top 0.4% of pupils in the country.

Our headline figures of 88% of pupils gaining grade 4 or higher in English, and 81% in Mathematics, are testimony to the efforts of the pupils and the hard work of the staff in supporting them. Preparation this year was made much more difficult by only having one practice paper in each subject, no guidance on grade boundaries, and the late publication of text books.

Mr Hardie commented: “Our pupils have once again excelled and I would like to pay tribute to their efforts. The pupils’ successes deserve to be recognised in light of the increased difficulty this year, with exams once again becoming more of a memory test in the style of the old O-level papers. There are many success stories for individual pupils to celebrate amongst the results and not just the new top grades. However, the fact that two of our pupils gained three grade 9s and nine A*s is a superb achievement”.

Following the fantastic A-level results our students gained last week we are now very busy with registering students for our Sixth Form in September, and will be open again for Sixth Form registration on Friday 25th August.