Clever clogs set new records for schools

A host of secondary schools saw new GCSE records set last week as more youngsters than ever before collected top grades - bucking the national trend.

Among the class acts was Balshaw’s CE High School in Leyland.

Headteacher Steven Haycoks said: “ Staff are delighted with the examination success of our students this year who have gained more A* - C grades including English and maths than ever before in this record year for us.”

Besides writing their way into the sc hool record books, pupils also beat national average benchmarks - including the key added value measure.

Students like Calum Loughlin with his 12 A* grades will study A levels at Runshaw College, many others performed better than expected and will go on to take apprenticeships or continue in academia.

At Lancaster Girls’ Grammar 69 per cent of the GCSEs were achieved at A* or A grade and the overall A*-C rate was 98.9 per cent.

Over half of the year group gained at least eight of their GCSEs at A* and A grade.

Among top performers were Katherine Deakin, Sorrel Fenelon, Amy Folkard, Harri Gilbert and Marianne Rees with A*grades in all 11 GCSEs.

Megan Abra, Emma Bain, Megan Dillon, Niamh Fraser, Dona Mathew gained 10 A* grades.

Lostock Hall Academy saw some “fantastic results” with English achieving 80 per cent A*-C grades.

As South Ribble High School of the Year, the Todd Lane North school recognises the importance of sport and the arts and staff applauded the high level of achievement in GCSE PE reaching 94 per cent A*-C grades while art and design notched up 100 per cent A*-Cgrades.

Alice Crook who gained 10 A*-A grades, Shannon Raponi with 10 A*-A grades, Ethan Colman with eight A*-A grades are just a few of the students who demonstrated the high levels of achievement.

Over at Fulwood Academy high fliers included Samantha Maher with six As and two Bs and Victoria Davies with seven As andA* and a B grade.