Sutton Valence School is pleased to report some outstanding achievements by its students in their GCSE and other qualifications this summer.

As with our A Levels, following the cancellation of external examinations this year, grades have been awarded through a process of teacher assessed grades (TAGs), against a national standard and approved and awarded by the exam boards. The government is not publishing performance data for any schools or colleges this year due to the varying impact of the pandemic.

It is important to remember that the last 18 months have been an incredibly challenging time for our students. Students have not experienced this much disruption to their education since World War II. We, as a School, worked hard to try and minimise this disruption as best we can – our teachers worked tirelessly to introduce new online-learning platforms, often giving up their holidays to plan online lessons and attend webinars on how these new platforms worked. We are so impressed with how well our students adapted to these changes and we thank them for their hard work.

Of the 88 pupils in the year group, 33% of this talented cohort achieved four or more grade 8 or 9 (formerly A* grade), with five students each gaining nine or more A and A* equivalent grades across a wide range of subjects. There are a great number of outstanding achievements to celebrate amongst this year’s GCSE cohort, and as ever, there have been some exceptional individual performances. These include Scarlett Washington (11 grade 9s), Elizabeth Goodwin (ten grade 9s and one grade 8s) along with Helen Chambers, Rose Price and Hannah Slipper, who all achieved grade 9 and 8 results.

“Today’s results were very pleasing indeed for last year’s Fifth Form cohort,” commented the new Headmaster, James Thomas. “I enjoyed meeting a number of them today, seeing how pleased they were and hearing how keen they are to embark on life in the Sixth Form. It has been a particularly trying period for many of them, and we should also applaud the significant work by the staff here at SVS as well as the support from parents at home. There is a great deal of potential in this cohort and I look forward to seeing them achieve fine things in the final chapter of their School lives.”