Brentwood's super 17 secure ten or more A*s

Brentwood School students collected their GCSE results today and for many it was a clean sweep of A* grades. No fewer than 17 students received ten or more A*s, (up from 10 last year) and 33 students received all A*s or As, bucking the national trend for top grades.

The eight straight A* students are Tallulah Allen, Henry Batty, Jonty McConnaughie, Lucy Patchett, Max Fewster, Emily Ridgwell, Shwetha Sivaraman and Lily Spencer-Smith.

A delighted Lucy was particularly happy with her Physics and Greek results, and paid tribute to her Classics teacher, Miss Fleming, who helped her achieve the top mark. She will be studying Greek, Latin and Psychology at A Level and hopes to continue her love of Classics at Cambridge University.

All-rounder Max Fewster said he was speechless, and seeing his results was ‘such a good feeling’. He didn’t expect to do so well in French, and particularly mentioned Miss Allen who helped him with a lot of out of hours of support. He will be studying Further Mathematics, Economics and Geography at A Level and will be celebrating with family tonight before embarking on a football tour with his friends tomorrow.

Emily Ridgwell was looking to a possible career in journalism or anthropology after securing 10 straight A*s. “It was a lot of hard work and the teachers gave us so much extra help,” she said. Emily will now study English Literature, Geography and History at A Level.

Lily Spencer-Smith said the School could not have done more to help and the extra exam sessions contributed towards her 11A*s. She would be celebrating in style by catching a flight to Budapest before returning to Brentwood to study History, Maths, German and French in the Sixth Form.

Tallulah Allen’s hard work certainly paid off. Tallulah, who had revised non-stop for the past three months, achieved a clean sweep of 11A*s. “I am really happy and relieved. The support sessions during the holidays really helped.” She thanked her teachers for all their support. “They wanted to do as much as they could to help.”

Twins Dewi and Jonty McConnaughie were celebrating a staggering cumulative total of 22 A*s and 2 As. Sixteen-year-old Jonty said results day was the end of ‘three months of heavy butterflies,’ but taking the exams with his twin was helpful. “We could motivate each other and it made for good competition”, he explained. The talented duo were off to a festival and then celebrating with a family meal when they would be joined by older brother Caolán who following last week’s A Level results secured a place to study Geography at Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge).

A staggering 33 students received all A*s or As in their examinations, (nearly 40% increase on last year) and the percentage of A* grades rose 4% on last year.

For the fifth year running, students at Brentwood sat the more difficult International GCSE in Science subjects (Chemistry, Physics and Biology), English, Mathematics, Computing and some Modern Languages.

Headmaster Ian Davies was at School to greet students and their proud parents and commented:

“Our students have worked exceptionally hard to achieve these results and we’re extremely proud of them. It’s very encouraging to see that, as was the case with our A Level and IB results, the top grades have increased, and I’m delighted that our Sixth Form will continue to benefit from this strong work ethic and committed attitude to studies. Congratulations to all of our students and staff.”

In total nearly a third of all GCSE grades were A*, 57% were A*-A and 81% A*-B. Today’s statistics perfectly complement last week’s A Level results, and the School’s equal best ever International Baccalaureate Diploma success. Among the 2017 Upper Sixth cohort, five students have taken up offers at Cambridge University and one at Oxford, and another five were awarded places to study Medicine or Veterinary Studies, which remain the most highly competitive of courses.