Following on from last week’s A Level success, it is with great pride that we can now announce that our GCSE results have been tremendous. For most of our girls, GCSE results day is the first step in them securing a place on the career ladder and it is always a delight watching each one of them receive their envelopes. It is traditionally a bit of a whirlwind morning for us as girls and families rush in to pick up results, but as we now settle down to take stock of their achievements we are happy to be sharing more great news from The Mount.
Over a quarter of the grades the girls are collecting today are A*s, with Esme Weeks triumphing with a superb 11 A*s. Over a third of the students have been awarded at least eight A*s or As and with nearly two thirds of the overall grades being an A or above. These are our best results for three years.
Esme Weeks and Neve Warriner, who herself has a terrific four A*s and seven As, are amongst those celebrating with us today, partly due to a project they were involved in at school. Head of History, Helen Snelson, who recently worked with the girls as part of the project looking at how the national curriculum approaches discussion of conscientious objectors, comments “The girls have worked so hard to achieve these fantastic scores, from the initial research they did on the project, presenting at a history conference in London to being interviewed on BBC Radio York. Well done all round.”
In particular we are also congratulating Nicola Dransfield, one of our boarders from Hong Kong, for achieving eight A*s and three As, Heloise Pearson and Lucy Smart with their four A*s and six As and following in her sister Celia’s footsteps who did well in her A Levels last week, Charlotte Wood has achieved five A*s, five As and a B. Well done to all and especially some of our other international boarders from who have also achieved high A*s and As.
This year we also celebrate the enthusiasm our Year 11 girls have shown to individual projects outside of their schoolwork, for instance Millie Bills’ win in the York Inspirations 2015 Design Competition, Amelia Cook’s appearance at West Yorkshire Playhouse for the opening season of the new play by Leeds-based musician and writer Alice Nutter, and five A* and five A student Ruby Haswell and her classmates for raising over £1,000 for St Leonard’s Hospice. At The Mount we encourage our students to live adventurously so when Ruby suggested that she put on a charity concert at school, organising the whole thing, from marketing through to auditioning acts, we were pleased to see more girls meeting our challenge head-on.
Principal, Julie Lodrick, said “This is another great set of results and we now look forward to seeing the girls back in September as they make the move up to studying for their A Levels. We’re glad that a lot of the girls will be staying with us as continuity in their education really does make such a difference to what they’re able to achieve. For those girls leaving us this year we wish them well with their future studies and remind them that we are always here should they need us.”