A TOTAL of 199 Year 11 students were celebrating last Thursday morning at Budehaven Community School as they received their GCSE results.

Staff and students at Budehaven are pleased that despite a national picture of continued turbulence in examinations results, overall standards in many subjects have improved compared with last year.

More than 1,800 exams were taken by the Year 11 students, and just over 18% of them have been awarded as grades A and A*. In English the number of A*/A grades is significantly above the national figures, and Budehaven’s maths A*-C results are also significantly above national results.

Nine students achieved all A* and A in their GCSEs. Sophie Ball, Augusta Clayton, Sean Cummins, Shaun Foster, Lowenna Hooper, Emma Jones, Molly Mees, Thomas Sobey and Kelsey Wosnitska all gained the top grades across all their subjects with Molly and Shaun achieving A*s in all their exams.

Shaun Foster said that he was ‘very pleased’ with his results and is looking forward to attending Budehaven’s sixth form to study English language, Maths, French, Geography and Physics.

Rachel Gould will also be staying on at the sixth form where she will study ICT, Art, Biology and Media. Her advice to her younger peers: “Make sure you start revising early — it will really help.”

Alex Quelch was pleased with his results and said they were ‘more or less as expected’, and highlighted the importance of meeting coursework deadlines.

“I’d advise everyone to get the coursework done, the sooner the better, because it will free up valuable time for revision.”

He’ll be attending sixth form to study ICT, Maths, Biology, Physics and Creative Media.

Emma Jones, one of the highest performing girls, said she did much better than expected.

“There was one I thought I failed and I got an A in it!”

She will continue her education at Budehaven to study Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths.

She added: “Things are always better than what you expect if you work hard, so just stick with it.”

Some students have chosen to carry on their education at other schools. Molly Mees did extremely well in her GCSEs and she said she will hopefully be going to Plymouth Grammer School to study Chemistry, Biology, Maths and French.

Sophie Ball will be heading to Truro in September after achieving nothing lower than A’s. She will be studing Maths, Further Maths, Physics and French.

Sophie said: “To those collecting their results next year, just open them and get it over and done with because they’ll be fine.”

Another top student, Sean Cummins said: “I did better than I thought — I didn’t go below an A.”

He will also be heading to Truro to study Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Geography.

Scott Edwards was ecstatic with his results which mean he can go to Petroc College to study Animal Care.

He said: “I’m very pleased. It’s finally over and I don’t have to worry anymore. I could dance to the moon!”

For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week’s edition of the Post.