THE headteacher of a school in Wantage has praised pupils for their resilience and hard work after they received their GCSE results yesterday.

 At King Alfred’s Academy, results in many subjects improved from the last set of public examinations outcomes in 2019 - the basics measure improved by 7 per cent and was achieved by 70 per cent of the cohort.

Headteacher Rick Holroyd said: “After all of the challenges and disruptions of the last two years, it is so pleasing to see the very strong of outcomes they have achieved, collectively and individually.

 

“These results build on the very high standards achieved in the last set of public examinations in 2019, and by some measures they are even stronger.

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“Most importantly, the vast majority of our students have achieved results which will allow them to progress to the destination of their choice.

“They have been a great pleasure to work with over the course of their time at the school, and so many have embodied and illustrated our academy principles of responsibility and resilience throughout a very difficult period in education.”

Some students achieving impressive results included Charlotte Hailey who achieved grade 9s across the board, Amelia Whitefield and Tanisha Kalitota who achieved 9 grade 9s, Eddie Hindson who achieved 8 grade 9s and Arthur Edeson who achieved 7 grade 9s alongside an A in Additional Mathematics.

Libby Gabbitas, Isabel Andersen and Emmie Tallyn – all aged 16 – said they were thrilled with their results.

Libby said: “I thought it went so much better than expected and I’m going to go on and do an apprenticeship. It feels like a great achievement and I’m really happy.”

Isabel said: “With the exams, I really didn’t know what to think but it turns out they went really well and I’m going to stay here for sixth form to study maths, economics and history.”

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Emmie said: “I’m proud of myself for what I achieved and I’m going to stay on for sixth form to do biology, geography and art.”  

Max Gayler, head of KS4, said said he was “really pleased” with the overall results, adding: “They’ve been rightly deserved by our students, I’m grateful for the resilience they have shown in the past few years.

“Students have responded to the guidance of their teachers, shown great flexibility and resilience in adapting to the challenges of the past few years whilst studiously working hard to realise results they should be rightly proud of today.

“It has been an absolute pleasure to work with all of them and we wish them all the very best for their next steps.

“The grades achieved by our Year 11 students represent an improvement on the continuing trend of improving results.”

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This story was written by Anna Colivicchi, she joined the team this year and covers health stories for the Oxfordshire papers. 

Get in touch with her by emailing: Anna.colivicchi@newsquest.co.uk

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