Schools in Abingdon and Banbury have defied low expectations nationally, with over a quarter of students obtaining the top grades and many achieving a clean sweep of 8s and 9s.

At St Helen and St Katharine’s, an independent day school in Abingdon, 32 per cent of all grades awarded were 9s and 60 per cent of all grades were 9-8.

There were 21 students at the school who performed exceptionally well, as they achieved ten or more 9-8 grades.

The school’s headmistress, Rebecca Dougall, said she recognised GCSEs “represent a huge workload for students” but students now had “excellent foundations on which to build their A level studies”.

Jemima, a music scholar at the school, managed the difficult feat of achieving ten 9s.

Her mother Fiona said: “It can be difficult to be a teenager at the best of times – harder still with all that’s going on in the world post-covid.”

Another keen mathematician Cosima was successful in achieving a clean sweep of ten 9s.

Cosima is already one of 24 students who has been selected for the UKMT Maths Olympiad training camp in Oxford and her parents attributed their daughter’s success in the subject to the school’s “exceptional teacher”.

Not too far away in Banbury, Tudor Hall girls’ school was celebrating a quarter of their pupils being awarded 9-8 grades and nearly half being awarded 9-7s.

Headmistress Julie Lodrick said pupils could be “justly proud” as their GCSE journey started three years ago at “the height of the pandemic”.

She said: “Their hard work has secured them results that enable them to progress with confidence to sixth form study and place them in a strong position to embark on their chosen A level courses, whether scientific, linguistic or creative.

“The majority of our girls remain with us for sixth form, and we look forward to supporting them towards their future pathways, which are as individual as the girls themselves.”

Tudor Hall pupil Ruby, who achieved 10 passes at grades 9-7, said: “I am lucky to have been surrounded by such an inspiring group of people, not only my friends, but also my subject teachers.

“Finding new ways to revise and study has made me hopeful that the next two years studying my A levels (History, English and French) will be enjoyable and successful.”

One of the girls at the school has been named as one of the OCR examination board’s highest performers in textiles and 100 per cent of Latin entries were awarded grade 9 or 8.