Student's delight (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Student's delight

Students from St Augustine's College, Trowbridge jump with joy outside their school on Thursday morning after their examination results were announced (17458/2)A-LEVEL RESULTS: YOUNG high-fliers are making plans for the future after their hard work for their A-level examinations brought its own rewards.

Students in Trowbridge did better than ever with St Augustine's Catholic College clocking up a 99 per cent pass rate with the combined sixth form at The John of Gaunt School and Clarendon College at 90 per cent.

Andy Packer, headteacher at the John of Gaunt School, said: "I am delighted with our outstanding success at A-level and we are confident we will do even better next year based on our AS level results."

Once again, girls outperformed boys and the three highest achievers at John of Gaunt were Kate Shipton, Katie Ratnett and Heidi Worth.

Kate won a place at Oxford on the strength of her three A grades and will be studying law.

She said: "I was so pleased. I have wanted to go to Oxford since I was a little girl so this was a really big deal for me."

Fellow pupil Katie, who also came away with three As, is taking a year out to raise funds before taking up her place at Cardiff University to study psychology.

She said: "I was completely shell shocked. I thought I had done particularly badly in two of my exams so I wasn't expecting it. It was just unbelievable."

At Clarendon College two pupils, Luke Halsall and Martha Naylor, came away with an A and two Bs and Amanda Wall was celebrating achieving two A grades.

At St Augustine's College more than 40 per cent of the total number of passes at the school were at grade A, with six youngsters getting four A grades each, including Lucy Carling.

Lucy achieved top scores in biology, chemistry, physics and maths and will be going to the Royal Veterinary College in London.

She said: "I thought the exams went quite well but even then in the gap between doing the exams and getting the results you do get quite nervous."

The headteachers of all three Trowbridge schools dismissed claims the exams are getting easier, echoing the sentiments of Wiltshire County Council's education director Bob Wolfson.

Mr Wolfson said: "It is a shame that every year the successes of young people are marred by the silly debates about the standard of A-levels and their comparability with past papers.

"I can confirm as a former teacher and headteacher, as well as a parent, that the demands on young peoples' brains are no less than they were 40 years ago."

Changes to the way examinations are assessed were highlighted as a reason for improving results.

In the past only a certain percentage of students were allocated the top grades, whereas now all those reaching the required standard are given those grades.

See this week's Wiltshire Times for full west Wiltshire A-level results