Students celebrate GCSEs

9:19am Friday 25th August 2006

LAUGHTER and tears marked a day of high emotion for teenagers in Bicester as they opened their GCSE results yesterday.

Sixteen-year-olds at the town's two secondary schools gathered nervously outside their classrooms to find out if two years' hard work had paid off.

Some 47 per cent of pupils at Cooper School, in Churchill Road, achieved five or more A* to C grades, while 36 per cent of students at Bicester Community College did the same.

Cooper School pupil Lucy Richardson, 16, from Tangmere Close, achieved five A*s, five As and a C. She is now going on to Gosford Hill sixth form to study A-levels in History, English, Psychology and Biology.

She said: "I am really pleased. I was a bit unsure as I didn't know how the exams had gone. I feel really happy."

Fellow pupil Martyn Royce, 16, of Fair Close, got seven As, four Bs and a C. He is going on to Banbury School to study English, Drama, Law and Politics.

He said: "I wasn't expecting results quite that good. In science, I started the year predicted an E and I got an A - I didn't want to fail my teacher."

Kelsey Grieve, 16, from Avocet Way, got four A*s, seven As and a C. She also plans to go to Gosford Hill sixth form to study A-levels in Art, History, Maths and Psychology.

She said: "I am really relieved and overjoyed. I didn't expect as good as this. I was terrified - I burst into tears when I saw them. I think I must have been the most emotional around."

Jamie Hall, 16, from Martin Close, got four A*s, six As, a B and a C. He also plans to go to Gosford Hill sixth form.

He said: "There probably will be some celebrations. I was excited and I wanted to know - I think I was the only one."

And Charlotte Gray, 16, from The Buntings, got six A*s, four As, two Bs and a C.

She said: "I am so happy, my parents are really proud. I wasn't expecting so many A*s."

Over on the over side of town, at Bicester Community College, students were also celebrating.

Star pupil Helena Mills, 16, from Bucknell Road, got nine A*s and three As. She now plans to stay on at the college's sixth form to study History, Geography, English and Maths.

She said: "I was actually shaking, I was really nervous. I was really quite scared - such a lot depends on it. I was just relieved so much hard work had paid off and it was all worth it."

Fellow pupil Daniel Yarnold, 16, from Grendon Underwood, got seven A*s, six As, a C and a D. He now plans to study A-levels in Physics, Chemistry, Maths and English.

He said: "I am amazed, I didn't think I had done that well.

"I can do what I want now, I have got lots of things open to me."

Ben Baxter, headteacher of Cooper School, in Churchill Road, said: "These results are a significant improvement on the figures achieved last year, and are testimony to the sustained hard work on behalf of the students themselves, the staff who taught and supported them and the encouragement and support of the students' parents.

"It is gratifying to highlight that the school's results buck national trends in terms of the relative performance of boys and girls, in that boys at Cooper were as successful as the girls."

Sandra Higgs, director of studies for Key Stage Four at Bicester Community College, said: "Students are also celebrating some excellent results in Agriculture, Engineering, Health and Social Care, Information Technology and in BTEC Foundation Hairdressing."