There was double twin joy and a straight 10 A*s sweep as Trent College celebrated more A* and A grades than ever before in this year's GCSEs, surpassing the school's previous best by almost five percent.
Year 11 Prefect, Lydia Fasey, was the Long Eaton independent school’s star performer, achieving a perfect 10 A*s, and fellow prefect, Matt Young scored 9 A*s and 1 A. Meanwhile twins Lucy and Ellie Hands and Georgina and Angus Low collected all A* and A grades.
Bucking the national trend of a fall in the top grades awarded, Trent College secured a record 54.25 percent of grades at the top A* and A, while an impressive 20 percent of the 121 students who sat GCSEs at Trent College this year gained all A* and As. The school's overall A*-C pass rate for 2013 is 94.42 percent.
Trent College’s pupils especially excelled in the Science subjects, in particular Physics where 83 percent scored A* or A, while 62 percent achieved the same grades in Maths. Both subjects saw 98 percent A*-C pass rates.
Gill Dixon, Head of Trent College, commented: “Despite the national picture of slightly depressed grades at GCSE this year, our Year 11 students have broken all records at Trent College, over its 150 year history. Trent College students are remarkable young men and women, with the capacity to achieve so much academically as well outside of the classroom. We are very proud of them!”
Whereas the bulk of students nervously gathered in the school’s Duke of Devonshire Library to receive their results, Lydia Facey received the good news of her A* clean sweep over the phone from a family holiday in France.
“It’s absolutely amazing!” she exclaimed.
Angus Low completed a celebratory sprint around the car park as sister Georgina sat nervously opening her results in the car. But there were plenty of twin hugs after learning Georgina had achieved 5 A*s 6As and Angus 4 A*s and 5 As.
“Angus had opened his and I said ‘Great, Angus has done really well, if I do badly I’ll die!” said Georgina. “I looked at mine and the first thing I saw was an A* in Physics and I couldn’t believe it!”
Angus said: “It’s quite a cool feeling knowing we’ve both done well. I had to do a celebration lap! Most of the time we study separately but then we will get together in the living room and fire questions at each other to revise, which really helped.”
As well as the Hands twins almost mirroring each other in grades – Lucy getting 6 A*s 3 As and Ellie 5 A*s 4 As – they achieved practically the same grades in the same subjects. The girls revealed it had always been that way throughout their school life.
Ellie said: “All our results are very similar and we’ve got the same mark in Physics, exactly the same percentage. We’ve always got the same grades pretty much so it’s quite cool to get the big results the same as each other too.”
Lucy said: “We do our own revision but test each other and we do talk about it, which helps us both from a moral support point of view.”
“It encourages you to do work,” Ellie added. “I know if Lucy’s doing work and I know I have to go and do some too.”
Both sets of twins and Lydia will stay on to study at Trent College Sixth Form next year, and they will be joined by the high-achieving Matt Young, who couldn’t wait to get home and tell his elder siblings, Tim and Emma, how he had done.
“My brother and sister both came to Trent too and I think I’ve beaten both of them, which is very pleasing!” he grinned. “It’s something to brag about at home anyway! I’ve tried to stay chilled out about these exams as I figured if you get stressed about it you will probably not do as well.”
Students on Trent College’s numerous scholarship programmes also shone with academic scholar, Katie Arthur landing 4 A*s and 5 As, while music scholar Oscar Sinfield achieved 1 A* 8 As and 1 B. England U16 rugby starlet Will Allman has joined Northampton Saints and will continue to study for A-levels at Trent after his 8 As.
Katie said: “I’ve been a boarder since Year 9, which has really benefitted me as you’ve got all your resources and teachers on site to help you. I’d say I probably wouldn’t have done as well as I have done if I hadn’t boarded at Trent College.”
For more information about Trent College please visit www.trentcollege.net