We congratulate our Year 13 students on their excellent public examination results, which were published today. Our students are set challenging targets, based on their GCSE performance two years ago, and we are delighted that the majority of our students have achieved or exceeded the grades they needed in order to secure their first choice places at university, in apprenticeships and in employment. This is the third time in four years that our A Level achievement ranks our school in the top 10% of all schools nationally. We were especially pleased with the high proportion of entries that were awarded the highest grades of A* and Distinction*. One in five A Level entries achieved A* or A, and more than one in three entries achieved A*-B grades. In our vocational courses, half of all entries achieved a Distinction* or a Distinction.

There were many outstanding individual achievements, too many to list here, but worthy of special mention are eight students who achieved three or more A Level grades A* or A. Our high achieving students include, amongst many more, Libbie Raines, who has achieved a place at Exeter to study Geography, Sergio Niblett-Morales who will study English at Queen Mary University, Freya Bailes, who has achieved a place at Durham University to study Economics with Management, Lois Buco, who will study Law at the London School of Economics, Daniel Smith, who has achieved a place at Warwick University to study History, Emily-Rose Taylor, who will go to the University of Kent to study Philosophy, Matthew Hartley who will go to the University of Surrey to study Law, Lewis Holmes who will study History at the University of Sussex and Jack Pattinson, who achieved three A* grades, who will study Engineering in the Navy.

Academy Principal, Jon Malone, commented:

I am delighted for our students. These excellent results show what can be achieved when hard-working, ambitious students, with a ‘can do’ mindset, work closely with excellent teachers, who are specialists in their field. I know that our students will be thanking their teachers and support staff today, who have worked tirelessly to encourage and support their aspirations. In addition to thanking our staff, I would also like to thank our many parents and carers, who share our values and high expectations, and whose support from home will have been a crucial factor in their child’s success. At St Simon Stock Catholic School we strongly believe that our purpose is not solely to prepare students for academic success, but also to teach our students the wider qualities and values that they need in order to help tackle the challenges that our world faces. I am proud of each of our students for all that they have achieved, and I wish them the best as they move on, confident that they will serve the common good.

15^th August 2019