Pupils in Herefordshire High Schools reach new heights at GCSE

Herefordshire Council reports that this year's GCSE results across the county's schools are the best ever, and show significant improvement on last year's previous high point. Results have now improved year on year for the last three years.

This year's results indicate that 69.4 percent of pupils achieved five or more grade A*-C GCSEs, a rise of 7.4 percent on 2007 and 3.7 percent above the national average. Those achieving five or more grade A*-Cs including English and mathematic has risen by nearly two percent to 53.5 percent.

Wyebridge Sports College, which has now become The Hereford Academy, continues its rapid advance and has improved by a staggering 23.4 percent from last year, achieving a 74.4 percent at five or more A*-Cs, becoming the fourth highest performing school in the county by this measure. Whitecross High School and the Minster College also record significant improvements since last year of over 13 percent, rising to 62.9 percent and 55.3 percent respectively.

Overall, boys' performance in Herefordshire has gone up by 7.1 percent against girls' increase in pass rate of six percent, and boys have closed the gender gap by one percent at five or more A*-C grades. At this point these results remain provisional but should be subject to only minor changes.

Sharon Menghini, director for children's services, said: "Congratulations to all our schools and their pupils for continuing to improve on results which are already above the national average results. I would also like to thank all the teachers, support staff and parents for helping our young people achieve such high standards.

"I am particularly pleased to see the outstanding results Wyebridge Sports College has managed to achieve which are a credit to the whole school community and supporting organisations, including the council."