Teachers at a Cotswold school have been brought to tears as pupils celebrated the release of their GCSE results.
Students at Chipping Norton School picked up their results this morning, with the average grade achieved by all students more than half a grade higher than in 2019.
Assistant headteacher, Yvette Armistead, said it was an emotional moment seeing pupils who had overcome a range of challenges get the results they wanted.
“We know the sacrifices made by our students to achieve these grades and pay tribute to their energy, humour, team spirit and willingness to work with us every single day,” she said.
“We are thrilled that success has not been isolated and that all of our students have reasons to be very, very happy and proud today.
“However, whilst it would not be appropriate to list their names, there are several students whose successes have brought tears to staff eyes.
“Overcoming illness, personal difficulties, or other challenges, often goes unnoticed by other students but we know how so many of our students showed tremendous resilience and determination to believe in themselves and their future.
“Their achievements are of equal merit and we are proud of them all.”
READ MORE: Chipping Norton School celebrates 'tremendous' A-Level results
Close to 80 per cent of pupils secured five or more GCSEs, including both English and maths.
Meanwhile, nearly 40 per cent of all grades were in the 7 to 9 range, with almost a quarter being 8 or 9.
Results were most impressive in the French department, where 91 per cent achieved a grade 9.
READ MORE: The Cotswold School celebrates ‘exceptional’ GCSE results
Greg Ledgard-Hoile, chair of the governing body, added:
“I want to congratulate our wonderful students, our Headteacher Mr Doherty, and his fantastic team at Chipping Norton School, for the truly outstanding GCSE results achieved this year.
“Chipping Norton school continues to outperform an ambitious school improvement and development plan, and has gone from strength to strength over the past seven years.
“Our school enjoys a loyal and dedicated body of teaching and support staff who always go the extra mile for their students.
"However, without the commitment and energy of those students, and their incredibly supportive parents and carers, we could not be in the happy position we find ourselves in today."
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He added: "I also wish to express my gratitude to those families who maintained faith and loyalty in their local school over these years.
"Students who joined in year seven and have now completed their GCSE exams did so on the basis of trust and a deep-rooted pride in our local community.
"CNS has always been a good school and our stated aim is to be a great school. We hope that this latest set of results assures families of the huge strides we have and continue to make at CNS.
"For those on that journey with us we celebrate these results with you and look forward to seeing you back in our outstanding sixth form, or moving on to new adventures.”
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