Council celebrates best GCSE results

12.06.01pm GMT Wed 3rd Sep 2008

• RICHMOND Council is today celebrating its schools best ever GCSE results.

Provisional figures show that 64 per cent of pupils achieved five or more A* to C grades, a rise of 6 percentage points on 2007 and the highest level ever achieved in the borough. The percentage achieving five or more A*-C grades including English and Mathematics also improved by 6 percentage points and now stands at 54 per cent. Some individual schools made exceptional improvements on last year's results.

Cllr Serge Lourie, Leader of Richmond Council said: "We are delighted with these results. Two years ago the council set the goal of improving our secondary schools as one of our most important priorities. The performance of our young people across all of our schools this year is evidence that we are making real progress. I would like to congratulate all of the pupils who have done so well this year. But I would also like to pay huge tribute to their teachers whose hard work and dedication has helped make all this possible.

"I would also like to thank officers in the Education and Children's Services directorate and my colleague Cllr Malcolm Eady who have worked so hard to support our schools over the past year. This has been a real team effort and it's produced a winning performance. It seems almost invidious to single out any one school but Grey Court, under an inspirational new head teacher, has in the last year gone from 54% to 68% of pupils gaining 5+ A* - C. This is a very significant achievement and I am delighted for the teachers and pupils concerned. These results are good, but they are not the end of the story - we need to keep improving until all our schools are achieving the very highest standards."