Newcastle’s family of secondary schools have bucked the national trend by achieving improvement in GCSE results for the 12th year in a row.
Although the full extent of success in the city is still emerging, we already know that more than 55% of our students have achieved at least five grades between A* and C, including English and Maths, and we expect the final figure to be higher.
Schools across the country are contesting the way their English GCSE results have been graded by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) exam board, after grade boundaries appeared to have been dramatically raised in recent weeks.
Even so, the provisional figures for citywide achievement still represent an increase of 2.4% on last year’s results. It means Newcastle has bucked the national trend, which has seen the pass rate for A* - C (inc Eng and Maths) fall for the first time in 24 years.
Coun Joanne Kingsland, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, said: “This year’s results are further evidence that Newcastle schools are among the very best in the country. I’d like to congratulate all those students who have worked so hard over the last two years, because they fully deserve their success. I’d also like to thank all our teachers and parents for the tireless tuition and support. We also fully support those schools who are contesting many of their English results on behalf of their young people."
Records were broken at a number of schools, with the likes of St Mary’s, Benfield, Kenton and St Cuthbert’s doing better than ever for the number of students gaining five or more grades at A* - C, including English and Maths.
The results follow some exceptional performances at A-level that were announced last week.
At St Cuthbert’s, there was a double celebration – or should that be a quadruple celebration - for two sets of identical twins who claimed 41 GCSE passes between them.
The Jarvis-Smith twins, Nicholas and Luke, each got 10 A* - C grades, while Fraser and Liam Wright got 10 and 11 A* - Cs respectively.
Page last updated: 24 August, 2012
