Record results for Lambeth's GCSE students (From Your Local Guardian)

Record results for Lambeth's GCSE students

12:50pm Friday 28th August 2009

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By Matt Watts »

The nail-biting wait for thousands of Lambeth GCSE students ended this week when they received their results.

See the GCSE results here.

Lambeth schools improved their results for the 12th consecutive year, with a 9 percentage point improvement.

Some 71.1 per cent of pupils hit the Government’s performance guideline of 5 A* to C grades, above the 67.1 per cent national average.

The improvement was over double the national average.

The most improved performance was by The Norwood School, with a staggering 46 per cent increase in the number of pupils getting five or more A* to C grades - with 84 per cent hitting the standard overall.

Headteacher Denise Webster said: "We're delighted. The staff have been so focussed and determined, as have the kids. We have many individual success stories but also 100 per cent of our pupils have left here with five or more GCSEs and all have qualifications in English and Maths.

"We really tried to target our teaching and courses as our intake is not as able as in some schools.”

Schools in Streatham and Norwood were all at the top end of Lambeth’s performance table.

La Retraite Roman Catholic girls’ school was the best-performing school with 93 per cent of pupils getting at least five A* to C, closely followed by St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls at 89 per cent, Bishop Thomas Grant at 85 per cent and Dunraven at 77 per cent.

All the school’s said they had improved their performance from the previous year - including 5 A* to C including English and Maths.

St Martins-in-the-Fields head teacher Lesley Morrison said: "The results are fantastic, we're really thrilled."

Steve Parsons, deputy head at Dunraven, said the school’s best ever results marked ”a very good year for us”.

He added: “We had an excellent Ofsted report, our best ever A-levels and now this. It really is great."

Pupils at private school Streatham and Clapham High School for Girls had a staggering 67 per cent of its grades as A*s and As, and 100 per cent of its pupils passed all their exams.

Head Sue Mitchell said: “There is always criticism that exams are dumbing down but these results show how hard everyone has worked.”

Councillor Paul McGlone, Lambeth’s cabinet member for children and young people, described the borough’s improvement as “an incredible achievement”.

He said: “Such strong results will go some way to ensuring success either within the job market or academia.”