WITH more rigorous courses and harder exams, some doom mongers had claimed that top Grade 9 results in reformed GCSEs would be rarer than hen’s teeth.

Pupils at Wycliffe have completely put that idea to flight however with an astonishing 18 per cent of grades in the tougher English and Maths courses hitting that top, exclusive mark.

Nearly a third of GCSEs in the non-selective Stonehouse school achieved the top Grades 8 or 9 today as pupils and staff celebrated Wycliffe’s best ever results.

And it wasn’t just the most able who performed so well, with 95 per cent of all pupils achieving 5 A*-C.

Across the board, the school saw a spectacular 48 per cent of grades coming in at A* and A, or their new equivalents. More than one grade in every five was at A* or 9.

No fewer than eight pupils (out of just 60 in the year group) achieved seven or more A* (or equivalent) grades.

These were: Lowri Clarke from Telford; Tillie Graham from Quedgeley, Gloucester; Isla Green from Wotton-under-Edge; Ella Kitching from Chepstow; Iona Lundie from Slimbridge; Izzy Naish from Minchinhampton; Maisie Spiers from Coaley and Becky Taphouse from Bradley Stoke.

There was no emergency for Ella whose 999 in the new GCSEs of Maths, English Language and English Literature, combined with seven more A* grades and an A.

A total of twelve pupils achieved at least five A* (or equivalent) grades and a quarter of the year group achieved at least four A* (or equivalent) grades.

On every measure these are the school’s best ever GCSE results.

Value added scores will once again be outstanding.

After their excellent 2016 showing, in which the school’s progress score was bettered by only two other schools in all of England, there was some apprehension as to how 2017 might measure up.

However, Wycliffe’s pupils doubled their expected scores based on entry standards.

Wycliffe’s Head, Nick Gregory said: “Against the back-drop of the changes to the curriculum, exam grades etc. imposed at national level, seeing Wycliffe’s boys and girls achieve our best-ever set of GCSE results is exceptionally gratifying.

"I am incredibly chuffed both for them and also for their teachers that the enormous amounts of hard work they all dedicated to preparing for their GCSE exams have paid off for them so positively.”