It was a day for celebrating in the sunshine as manilla envelopes were ripped open and GCSE results pored over at St John’s School in Marlborough this morning (Thursday).
There were hugs, shrieks and cheers among the general hubbub in the school’s airy atrium.
But behind the scenes there was anger that ‘political expediency’ at the very top of government had dashed the school’s hopes of another record breaking year.
Back in the atrium, a group of lads were participating in a round of back-slapping and bear hugging.
Among them were Connor Ford (in the red top) and Will Hendry (in the white t-shirt) who had recorded some of the school’s best results – nine A* and three A grades for Connor, four A* and six A grades for Will.
Their mates hadn’t done badly, either. Dan Ashby (left) scored four As with a smattering of Bs and Cs, Ed France (in the hat) whose results included three A*s and six As, Robin Utton, whose Ambitious but Rubbish t-shirt belied his A* and six As, and Jamie Goodhew, in the blue hoodie, who gained three A* and three A grades among his results.
In the shrieking and hugging corner, Polly Howard (left) also won a place at the top table with her eight A* and three A grades.
Her friend Tara Colsell-Hawes was too bashful to share her results, but said she was “very pleased with them”.
Hollis Butler and Hugo Gardiner, too, were all smiles. Hollis (left) was “really pleased” with his three As along with some Bs and Cs. Hugo was “very happy” with his three A*s, five As, two Bs and a C.
Emma Whitworth (left) was equally pleased with her three A*s, two As and five Bs, while Daniella Judd was celebrating two As, four Bs, two Cs and a D.
Outside, Phoebe Studdert-Kennedy (five A*s, six As), Saskia Hume (two A*s, nine As) and Sophie Litherland (one A*, two As, seven Bs and a C) were celebrating their clutch of results.
Phoebe – whose results put her in the school’s list of top achievers – was the only student we spoke to who wasn’t staying on at St Johns’ popular sixth form to study A Levels… she’ll be staying on to pursue the International Baccalaureate instead.
In the headteacher’s study, Dr Patrick Hazlewood grinned when asked where he was going to put all the young people staying on at sixth form. “I really don’t know,” he joked. “There’ll be 420 of them. We’ll find somewhere.”
He was in a less jovial mood about the English results, which headteachers across England are complaining have been marked too harshly as the government tries to curb ‘grade inflation’.
“That political view is all very well,” he said, “but it has an impact on individual children, who have worked so hard. It’s just not fair to them, or their teachers.
“The 186 students who sat English Language or Literature did pretty much as we would have expected, with 86 percent getting a C or above in Language and 96 percent getting a C or better in Literature.
“But of the 47 pupils who did the Combined English course, around 20 were awarded a grade below what we’d expected. We will be submitting a formal complaint and seeking remarks.”
Dr Hazlewood said the school had been expecting another record year, but if the controversy over the English results had mired the celebrations, the stats were still impressive, with 86 percent of students achieving 5A* to C grades, 82 percent achieving C or better in maths and 86 percent gaining two or more C grades or better in science.
Thirty percent of all grades were A* or A, and 100 percent of pupils took home GCSE certificates.
The highest scorers included Natasha Taylor (11A*), Megan Richardson (10A*, 1A), Claire James (10A*, 1A), Polly Howard (8A*, 3A), Connor Ford (9A*, 3A), Sarah Crookall (6A*, 5A), Hristiany Georgiev (6A*, 5A), Izzy Payne (5A*, 6A), Cherilyn Mawby (5A*, 7A), Christopher Baker (5A*, 5A) Will Ballard (4A*, 6A), Phoebe Studdert-Kennedy (5A*, 5A), Duncan Lorrain (4A*, 9A) George Martin-Johnson (4A*, 6A) and William Hendry (4A*, 6A).
[Click on pictures to enlarge or for slideshow.]