Today’s figures also show a decline in uptake of Art and Design at GCSE level across the United Kingdom, with a 5.9% drop from 194,637 last year to 183,085 this year.
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Jewish schools have recorded another strong performance at GCSE, with a dramatic improvement in particular at Kantor King Solomon High School in Redbridge.
Overall, 96 per cent of pupils achieved at least five GCSEs from A* to C including English and maths.
Some 55 students (more than half the year group) gained straight A*s, and 75 girls achieved nine or more top grades.
She said: “This is the first year of results from the new curriculum we brought in at the end of the 2014 academic year – so the stakes were high for us”.
The Essex comprehensive is celebrating its best set of GCSE results with more than three-quarters of pupils, 77 per cent, achieving five or more GCSEs at A* to C including maths and English – the standard national performance measure – compared to 57 per cent previous year.
The school’s top performer was Kate Hoyland, who achieved even A*s and four As.
He singled out the results for GCSEs in Jewish studies, where 85 per cent of students received an A* to C pass.
Yehia Daebes (eight A* and four As) said: “After reading my results, I felt very relieved because the only letter that I saw was “A”!”
Principal Mark Wyss said the results represented the hard work of students. “For my A Levels, I have chosen to take Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths and Physics and I’m looking forward to studying either medicine or natural sciences at university”.
Josh is also going on to study at Durham Sixth Form and hopes that A-levels in computing, physics and criminology will set him on the right track for a university place and a career as a computer programmer.
She said: “Our pupils have worked so hard and have engaged really well with the opportunities we have provided for them”.
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“I’m also just so delighted for those parents who took a gamble on us over the last couple of years when the academy was so young, so new, with no track record of its own and recovering from what happened at the predecessor school”.
