Students celebrate A-level success

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Record number of top grades

More Hammersmith & Fulham students than ever before have gained A and B grades in their A-levels – and the borough’s overall pass rate at grades A - E has stayed above the national average again this year.

The overall pass rate in the borough’s schools at grades A to E was 97.5 per cent – 1.3 percentage points above the national figure of 96.2. More than half of the passes (54 per cent) in Hammersmith & Fulham were at grades A and B - a record number of top grades.

The excellent results are thanks to the hard work of students and teachers at Lady Margaret School, the London Oratory School and the William Morris Academy (WMA), whose respective A to E grade pass rates this year were 100 per cent, 97.8 per cent and 95.8 per cent.

This is the third year running that Lady Margaret students have achieved a 100 per cent pass rate at grades A – E, while the percentage of passes at grades A and B at the school was 80.2 per cent, a significant improvement on last year’s figure of 73.7. The pass rate for A and B grades at the London Oratory School improved by just over ten percentage points from 48.1 to 58.2.

Meanwhile WMA students, who come from a wide ability range, have achieved excellent A-level results again as well as excelling in their applied (vocational) A-levels - the Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education. The A to E pass rate for students on the AVCE combined courses, equivalent to two A-levels, was 94.4 per cent at WMA, 11 percentage points above the national figure. There were seven double A grades on the combined AVCE courses at the academy, which is the only council-funded sixth form to offer the courses. It is the fourth year that students nationally have taken AVCEs.

Among the individual success stories at the borough’s sixth-forms were:
· Soosan Beirne, 19, a William Morris Academy student and former pupil at Fulham Cross School. Soosan gained three As at A-level (English literature, sociology and media studies) and an AS-level in citizenship at grade A. She has a place to study English at King’s College, London. She was co-editor of the WMA magazine and would like to be a journalist.
· Maria Botcharova, 18, of Lady Margaret School, who was educated at local primary schools (the former Larmenier Infants and Sacred Heart Junior - now merged) before going to Lady Margaret. Maria gained five A grades at A-level (Russian, English, maths, further maths and physics). She has a place to study maths at Cambridge. Maria, who arrived in this country from the Ukraine in 1992 with no English, (contd…) said: “I feel I have really achieved something having come to this country with no English – especially getting an A-level in English.”
· Marten Mark, 18, of William Morris Academy, arrived in England as an asylum seeker from Estonia in 2002 and narrowly avoided being deported with his family last year (saved by last-minute representations to the Home Office by WMA and former local MP Iain Coleman). Despite struggling with English, he gained three A grades in maths, physics and computing A-levels and an A in economics AS-level. Marten has a place to study computing at Imperial College, London.
· Samina Uddin, 18, of William Morris Academy, who has a place at King’s College, London to study human science after gaining three A-levels (A in psychology, B in biology and C in chemistry). Before studying at WMA, Samina was a head girl at Phoenix High School, in White City, where she gained 12 GCSEs (nine A grades and three Bs). She hopes to transfer to medicine at King’s College after one year of human science or study medicine as a post-graduate.
· Alisha Bailey, 18, of William Morris Academy, gained a double A in performing arts AVCE as well as a B in media studies A-level and a C in English language and literature A-level. She has a place to study media arts at Royal Holloway College, London, and has already appeared in walk-on parts in TV dramas such as The Bill.

Cllr Melanie Smallman, cabinet member for education, said: “All the students and teachers deserve our heartfelt congratulations for their hard work and commitment. Many have progressed from local primary and secondary schools to our sixth-forms and now have places at top universities, while others have overcome real difficulties to gain these outstanding results.
Our overall A-level results show that Hammersmith & Fulham students are continuing to perform better than others nationally. William Morris Academy has again shown that students from a wide range of backgrounds can make massive progress with the right support, while London Oratory and Lady Margaret have improved on their already very high standards with students gaining record numbers of A and B grades.”

Liz Walton, WMA principal, said: “We cater for students from a wide range of abilities and backgrounds so it is very pleasing to see them achieving so well at A-level and AVCE. We have helped to spearhead this new qualification and broaden the curriculum with a really wide choice of vocational and academic courses. Students can choose a mix of courses as well as specialising in either academic or vocational A-levels. We think this gives them greater opportunities to fulfil their potential.”

The William Morris Academy was set up as the joint sixth form for five Hammersmith & Fulham secondary schools in 1994. It became England’s first 16 to 19 school in January 2002 after a change in the law allowed the council to establish WMA as a free-standing institution. Eighty five per cent of advanced level students go on to higher education. The five local secondary schools which use the sixth form provision at the academy are Henry Compton, Hurlingham and Chelsea, Fulham Cross, Phoenix High and Burlington Danes.

August 23, 2005