Local Schools excel in A Levels and GCSEs

---

Record breaking results earn plaudits for local students

Many local students will have reason for celebration following the publication of exam results showing a continued improvement for local schools at both GCSE and A level above and beyond the national trend.

At Elliot School the A Level pass rate at A to C was 70.3%. The school saw 35.8 per cent of GCSE examinations come in with top three grades. Putney High School saw a 100% pass rate at A Level with 96.2 per cent getting A to C grades and 83.6% A to B grades.

Southfields Community College saw its GCSE score rise by 13 percentage points from last year to 33 per cent.

A level results from Wandsworth schools are just above the national average with 69.2 per cent of passes in the A-C grades. This is a marked improvement from two years ago when it was only 62% The overall subject pass rate rose to 98 per cent against a national average of 96%.

Across the borough provisional figures show an average pass rate in the higher grades for GCSE of 50 per cent. This is fifteen points up on the position six years ago. Only two per cent of entrants failed to gain a single pass. When the council took over the running of the borough's schools from ILEA in 1990, around one in five students left without a single pass.

Cabinet member for education Malcolm Grimston expressed delight at the results, "All our students fully deserve the congratulations of their families and their teachers for their application and hard work through many long months. They now know that all their efforts were worth it."

The total number of examination entries in the borough was up by more than 20 per cent on two years ago at just over 1300. Candidates gaining grade A was also up from 21.6 per cent to 22.4 per cent, and the gap between boys and higher-achieving girls got smaller.

Malcolm Grimston said, "It is very rewarding to see the progress made by Wandsworth schools in recent years. It is no surprise that places in the borough's secondaries are so keenly sought after by parents."

Full results will be available from schools when they return for the Autumn Term.

August 27, 2004