AFTER months of nervous waiting, pupils at Matravers School collected their A-level and GCSE results earlier this month – and it’s been another great year for the school.
Staff at the school say they are delighted with the results and have praised the students for all their hard work, especially GCSE students who this year received their results with the new grading system, which now follows 9-1 number format as opposed to A-E letters.
Dr Simon Riding, headteacher commented, “We are both thrilled and proud of our Year 11 students for their outstanding results. As you may have seen in recent national press reports, this has been the first year of the new English and maths courses, with the exams students sitting being the hardest faced for over 30 years. Our students and staff stood up to this challenge by securing some truly exceptional grades.
“We are hugely proud of our Year 11 students who have also had to overcome the turbulence and difficulties that the new-style English and maths GCSE exams have created nationally. Despite this, our students have performed exceptionally well and achieved above and beyond expectations.
“We are thrilled to welcome students back to our sixth form in September and wish students success who are moving onto apprenticeships and vocational courses at college. I am particularly delighted with several of our students who have achieved in the top 5% of the country by gaining the new grades 8 and 9, as well as the high percentage of students who have achieved A*/A across a range of subjects. There have also been many pupils who have met the challenging targets set for them across their subjects.”
Particular praise for students who have achieved an excellent set of GCSE grades go to Lauren Srawley; Fraser Guard; Jess Morris; Dan Hall; Ethan Devlin; Megan Davis; Harry Wild; Chloe Williams, Emily Wain; Ben Gunstone; Lauren Ashman; Claire May; Dan Jones; Kian Tugwell; Olivia Watkins; Madelin Strout and Finlay Saggers.
The A-level results were equally as impressive. Top performing students included Cianne Park who secured a place at Imperial College London to read medical engineering having secured A*A*A*A, Head boy, Tom Ford, achieved AAA at A-level and an A* in an extended project to win a place at Southampton University to read history. Alex Harrison also achieved an A* with his extended project to go with his ABB at A-level, to secure his place on a football coaching degree based at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. Jess Jones is going on to read mathematics at the University of Surrey, having gained ABB at A-level and an A in her extended project. Catherine Jones is going to Bristol University to read zoology, having secured ABB and a B in the extended project and Christine Rodgers also achieved ABB and is moving on to Salford University to study media and film.
Among the top non-A level students, those who performed particularly well were Sophie Jones who gained the equivalent of 5 Distinction* in her BTEC qualifications and Emma Kelly, Rebeca Nierges and Jackie Parkinson each of whom secured 3 Distinction* qualifications. Emma will be studying tourism at the University of Gloucester, while Rebeca will be going to university in Romania.
A highly successful ‘mixed pathway’ of A levels and BTECs continues to be a strength of the Matravers sixth form, with a number of students excelling in this area, including Elizabeth Jenner who gained A*B at A-level and a Distinction* for a BTEC, Will Heron who gained D*D* in his BTECs and C at A-level, Scott Beswick and Beth Foskett and Poppy Devlin, who achieved an additional B at A-level too.
Dr Riding added, “Our results continue to show that students at Matravers are accessing high quality teaching and learning day in day out and this is enabling our school community to flourish.”
