2023 A Level Results - Grey Court Sixth Form: Engineered success!
It was a case of the “A” team for students from Grey Court, once again, with the Sixth Form significantly surpassing the 2019 results and registering a record number of its students in prestigious law, economics and engineering degrees. “I love it when a plan comes together,” quipped headteacher Christopher Rhodes, referencing the original A-Team’s ubiquitous leader, Hannibal Smith. “We knew that the government intended to return to 2019 grade boundaries and so vowed to surpass these measures and increase our representation in prestigious engineering, economics and law courses, where we have been historically underrepresented.”
Performance increased across all key areas compared to 2019 with the school posting A*/A grades for 41% of students (37% 2019) A*-B grades of 75% (67% 2019) and A*- C grades of 90% (89% 2019). Outstanding grades that facilitated entry to Law degrees were achieved by Raisharnai Kitson A*AAA (Law at Cambridge) Florence Bradley A*A*A ( Law at Exeter) and Lily Clarke A*A*B (Law with Politics at Sussex). Meanwhile engineering was well represented by Freddie Dembrey A*A*A*A (Mechanical Engineering at Bath), Neema Fanaie A*A*A A (Mechanical Engineering at Edinburgh), Thomas Sinclair A*A*A (Civil Engineering at Bristol) and Tom del Rio A*AAB (Mechanical Engineering at Leeds). Sami Doyle (AAA) also became Grey Court’s first student to win a place at LSE. The sciences were again represented with Matei Gavrileasu who attained AAA and will study medicine at Manchester and Yusuf Spahi (A*AA) who has been accepted to study physics at Imperial. Acting Head of Sixth form, Karan Bhumbla puts this success down to “a combination of student focus, resilience and quality work experience placements that the school worked tirelessly to facilitate.”
Elsewhere Grey Court’s commitment to providing a broad and balanced curriculum in the Sixth form meant that students studying BTEC qualifications in conjunction with A-levels broke all previous records and have gained places on a number of competitive degree courses. With 73% of all Btec grades awarded at Distinction and Distinction* level Lucy-John Sinatra A*A*Di*A* is now studying Fine art at University of the Arts London, Daisy Bowie Di*AB will take up a place to study Veterinary nursing at Bristol whilst Conor Strickland Di*AA intends to study Computer Systems Engineering at Royal Holloway. Owen Croxen who achieved Di*Di Di in his three BTEC qualifications is taking up a high level apprenticeship with Neg Earth, an industrial sound and lighting company working in the entertainment industry.
Head boy, George Butler, who gained A*AA and intends to study Economics at Loughborough, commended the spirit of his peer group: “We all really came together in the build up to the exams and with the support of our families’ and teachers the 2023 cohort has really left its mark. I now intend to go out and celebrate!”
“We have faced a number of challenges this year in the wake of the pandemic, uncertainty about results, worries about university places, a challenging school recruitment landscape and a turbulent economy,” observed Mr Rhodes, with a smile. “I am glad we have all come together to support our community and have worked tirelessly to deliver results and opportunities for one another.”