Proud principal as students from The Littlehampton Academy have GCSE results success

52 per cent of students achieved grade 5 or higher in English and 42 per cent achieved grade 5 or higher in maths.

Individual success stories include Nerys Evans who gained three grade 9s and four 8s and William Hayward who received three 9s and three 8s.

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Ben Clark-Eden achieved six 8s, two 9s and a 5 in Spanish and he was over the moon.

Ben had a stressful year juggling a football scholarship with Brighton and Hove Albion alongside his school work and had spent Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the school year at football training.

He said: “I am very surprised, it is beyond what I expected.”

Gabija Stankute was feeling the nerves when coming into school for results day.

Gabija said: “I was really scared and thought I was going to fail and not get into college.”

Her fearful tears turned into happy ones as she opened the results letter to find she had achieved six 8s and two 9s.

This is the second year of GCSE reforms, with most subjects now being awarded grades 9 to 1, while a few subjects still remain on the A*-G grading system.

The new GCSEs have been designed to be more rigorous with exams taken after two years of study, and less coursework counting towards the final grade.

Katie Ridgway, director of learning for key stage four, said: “I am extremely proud of all of our year-11 students receiving results today.

“These results are a result of two years of hard work and dedication to their studies and we look forward to welcoming them into our successful sixth form in a few weeks’ time.”

Joel Grout is one student who has decided to stay on at the academy for his A-level studies, after receiving high grades in his GCSE exams.

Joel, who hopes to go on to study astrophysics at university in the future, said: “It is a bit of a shock. Over the summer your expectations drop so it was a nice surprise.”

Principal Morgan Thomas said: “We are extremely pleased with how our students have performed – especially given that the majority of the GCSEs our students sat are the new, tougher GCSEs.

“Students, parents and staff have come together well to face the challenges of a new exam system and we are very proud of the achievements of our young people. These results clearly show that The Littlehampton Academy is an increasingly successful school.”

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