HIGHLIGHTS ACADEMIC INSERTAUTUMN TERM 2009
School Sponsored Walk10th July 2009
The Chairman of Governors’ Prizegiving Address
EDUCATION THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT
New Chairman of Governors
Stephen Eames
Distinguished guest, ladies and gentlemen and students. Welcome to St Albans School Annual Prize Giving.
Whenever a large number of people come together in one place, issues of health and safety come into play. In case of an emergency, the exit doors are situ-ated to the side, to the rear and to the front. There are flotation devices under the pews and in the unlikely event of a sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks are probably not going to reach us from this ceiling.
After a few words from me, I will be introducing the Headmaster and then our distinguished guest of honour Charles Crawford CMG, OA who will present the prizes and conclude tonight’s event with his personal address.
The purpose of this evening is to present prizes to those judged worthy to receive them. I want to say to those not receiving prizes that you are equally valued and valuable. You will have contributed to the health and welfare of the School and you are in no way diminished by the lack of goodie bag from tonight’s event.
I speak on behalf of the Governors and I want to say a word about them. They are truly a dedicated bunch of talented people. They give their time and wisdom to the School and you have rewarded their efforts by producing a stunning set of exam results.
As Governors, we are re-examining our governance structure. We have to keep pace with the constant changes in education and society. We are propos-ing to streamline our approach to meet the challenges we face from political antipathy and the increasing burden of regulatory interference.
I want at this stage to pay special tribute to my predecessor, recent generous benefactor and long time friend of the School, Mr Ian Jennings. The state of the School today coupled with this year’s excellent exam results are fitting testa-ments to his dedication. Tonight provides another opportunity to show our appre-ciation of all that he has done for the School by this round of applause.
I am never quite sure about ‘mission statements’ but ‘to provide an excellent education whereby pupils can achieve the highest standard of academic suc-cess according to ability and develop their character and personality so as to become caring and self-disciplined adults’ will do for me.
In terms of academic success, this year’s results are nothing short of fantastic. I do not intend to dwell on the detail which can be found in the Headmaster’s letter to all parents at the start of term and also on the School’s website.
They are a credit to the students, their parents/guardians and, of course, to the skill and dedication of the teaching staff. To all of you, I offer my warmest congratulations.
The report of the recent inspection of the School said that:-
‘The School provides an outstanding edu-cational experience which is successful in promoting pupils linguistic, mathematical, scientific, human, social and physical development’.
I am as interested in producing well-rounded individuals equipped to face adult challenges as I am in them achieving high academic standards.
According to the inspection the school seems to have got most things just about right.
It was a year ago yesterday that Lehmann Brothers collapsed, precipitating a signifi-cant economic downturn, job loss and uncertainty. Between then and now, we have witnessed the naming, shaming and nest-feathering of our politicians. Perhaps all of those responsible for this unseemly lack of integrity (driven by greed, avarice and bloated bonuses) would do well to follow the School’s motto. It is time for honesty, integrity and trust to be restored and rewarded. I am pleased to note that the School has this on its agenda.
We are in turbulent economic times. The education we provide our children is probably the most important gift we can bestow upon them. For its part, the School will continue to provide an excellent product at as reasonable a price as possible.
I would also like to thank the non-teach-ing staff for their considerable contribu-tion to the success of the School. I would also like to mention the importance of the Development Office under the guid-ance of Kate Le Sueur. The School is not richly endowed but is keen to provide top quality facilities and meet its public benefit obligations by the provision of bursaries. The Governors see this as a very significant aspect of the School’s future.
Finally, we would not be where we are today were it not for the inspired leader-ship of our Headmaster Andrew Grant. In charge since 1993, his contribution to education has been recognised by his appointment as Chairman of the HMC. The School, under his stewardship, has grown in strength and reputation and I would invite you to show your apprecia-tion for all that he has achieved as I invite him to speak.
I am as interested in producing well-rounded individuals equipped to face adult challenges as I am in them achieving high academic standards.
OUTSTANDING SUCCESSES The Headmaster’s Prizegiving Address
Andrew Grant, Headmaster
it was right and proper… that we received multiple verdicts of ‘outstanding’ in the inspection that took
place earlier this year.
Chairman, Guest of Honour, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Abbey and to our 2009 Prizegiving.
It was on such an occasion and in such a place as this that an angel once appeared to a Headmaster and told him that, in recognition of his selfless, tireless and exemplary behaviour, he would be rewarded with his choice of either beauty or wealth or infinite wisdom. Without hesitation, the Headmaster selected infinite wisdom. Instantly, the angel disappeared in a flash, leaving a faint odour of sanctity and the Headmaster surrounded by a shimmering aura of light. There was silence. The audience were aware that something strange had occurred, but were not sure what. After an embarrassing pause, the Chairman of Governors tapped the Headmaster on the shoulder and whispered: ‘Say something!’
Summoning and sifting the knowledge of all the ages past and ages yet to come to which he now had complete and instant access, the Headmaster slowly surveyed his audience and his gaze was steady and sad and pitying and infinitely weary. At last, with a sigh, he moved to the micro-phone, and delivered himself of this truth: ‘I should have taken the money.’
We haven’t given our prize winners quite the same range of options, but let me begin by congratulating them all very warmly. For reasons I will come to later, we have an unusually large number tonight, you will have a lot of applauding to do and will have sore hands by the end of the evening, but let me include in those congratulations my colleagues who have worked so hard to help them achieve that success and the parents who have obviously started by bequeathing their children excellent DNA and gone on supporting them in their efforts.
But this is an evening for celebrating excellence and achievement and our successes this year are not represented solely by those young people here tonight. If any occasion is one for exercis-ing unashamed bragging rights, this is it.
For a year in which the press was glee-fully predicting the imminent implosion of the independent sector, courtesy of the deepest recession in living memory, we have had a remarkably successful past
academic year and we begin the new one with the School Roll at an all-time high.
Even before we get on to examination results, we can point to exceptional extra-curricular success: the First XV were declared Evening Standard Team of the Month in November and suffered only one defeat, by one point, in a long season’s campaign. They, and the major-ity of our teams, finished well up in the season-long leagues run by the School-srugby web site. The undefeated summer tour of New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands was a fitting end to their School Rugby careers for a number of our stars. The U12 team defeated twenty other schools from around Hertfordshire in
the Herts 10’s Rugby Tournament and took the honours in the final from the hosts, Berkhamsted, while in hockey the U13s took second place in the county in the National Minis Cup County Tournament.
The girls, too, had a successful netball season, beating the High School in the District competition and Loreto in an inter-school fixture, which are always satisfying results.
The cross-country squad had to settle for being merely the third best in the country this year, bringing the bronze medals back from the King Henry VIII relay title they were defending in Cov-entry and our senior swimmers were winners of the County league.
Our cricketers surpassed all recent sea-sons, with a clean sweep in all District Championships, the U13 County Cup and an 82% win rate for the First XI who retained the Bedford Twenty/20 shield and topped the Schoolscricket league table. Our number one Men’s pair retained the U18 County Tennis Championship and several longstanding athletics records fell on Sports Day.
The Joint Schools oratorio in the Abbey was a triumphant performance of Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace and then, over Easter, our musi-cians went off to Italy to give three
very well received concerts: at Olivo Camaiore, in Pistoia Cathedral and at San Gimignano.
Tom Blackie will be the seventh Choral Scholar we have sent to Cambridge in six years and this summer, one of our Fifth Formers, Freddie Sawyer, has been play-ing the title role in an adult production of Hamlet in our own open air theatre.
Our CCF has undergone a prestigious re-affiliation to the Coldstream Guards and nine of our cadets attended lead-ership courses at the National Cadet Leadership Training Centre at Frimley Park, one of them, Gareth Gibson, being named best cadet of the course.
It doesn’t stop when they leave: this year, an OA won the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst; there were OA athletics and cross-country Blues won at Cambridge, Friendly Fires – all recent OAs - are one of the hottest tickets in town, even if they were beaten to the Mercury Music Award last week and the list of First Class honours and higher degrees earned by OAs this year is the longest I can remember.
All this being the case, it was right and proper, but very pleasing nonetheless, because what is right and proper doesn’t always happen, that we received multiple verdicts of ‘outstanding’ in the inspection that took place earlier this year. What was particularly gratifying was to see the quality of my colleagues’ pastoral work recognised formally, the accolades for the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural dimensions of life at St Albans School and the fact that our links with the com-munity were also judged outstanding – an important factor bearing in mind the interest the Charity Commission is taking in the Public Benefit provided by independent schools.
That saga grinds on, and I spoke enough about it on this occasion last year, so I won’t repeat myself, but it is worth noting that the two HMC schools so far inspected have been declared to be operating for the public benefit. I’ve mentioned Sandhurst already, and if you look at the Passing-Out lists it’s fair to say that without HMC schools, this country’s armed forces would not have many officers.
The Commission, nevertheless, remains very resistant to the proposition that the £3 Billion, or so, that you, the parents, save the Exchequer by educating your children at your own, rather than the taxpayer‘s expense, amounts to a clear and widespread public benefit. I’d have thought it was quite a handy sum to find down the back of the DCSF sofa, so to speak; small change in these days of massive public borrowing, I know, but still enough, for example, to compensate those lowest earners who lost out from the Government’s abolition of the 10% tax band, if you can remember that far back.
That being so, I am sure I was not the only one to appreciate the irony of hear-ing Dame Suzi Leather, interviewed on the Today programme on July 14 dismiss-ing this notion in the very same week that the Government was compelled to announce – and I quote: ‘an extra £200m to provide new primary school places in parts of England struggling with shortages, [due in part to] the recession reducing numbers in private education’.
She claimed the argument was like driv-ing a private car and claiming charitable benefit for not using public transport, a simile which a number of entirely forget-table Government ministers obviously rather liked and subsequently parroted. It has obviously escaped Dame Suzi’s atten-tion that Public Transport in this country is almost entirely privately owned but still heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, whilst independent school parents are in the position of someone who owns a top-of- the-range car, but is compelled to buy a full-price rail ticket every time they want to drive it. In any case, we
believe the Commission’s interpretation of the law is fundamentally flawed and if it comes to it, will take whatever action is necessary to test it. In October, at HMC Conference, I shall have the opportunity of pointing this, and a number of other things, out publicly to the Charity Com-mission and the press.
And so to our examination results: records at both GCSE and A level that place us in the very front rank of schools in this country and on which our students and staff deserve the warm-est congratulations. Unfortunately, the
annual publication of results is always a cue for a festival of hand-wringing, breast-beating, finger-pointing and navel-gazing about whether or not standards are declining. In case this is a concern to you, I shall quote what I wrote in a recently-published article. Apparently other Heads have been copying it and sending it out to their parents, so perhaps you ought to hear it.
Setting aside the question of what the critics would actually prefer (What con-clusion would they draw from steadily declining pass rates? You can bet it would not be that exams were getting tougher; it would be that standards of teaching or students’ intelligence were declining) on the face of it, the evidence looks pretty damning: nationally, pass rates are approaching 100%; A grades account for more than a quarter of all results and the rise has been inexorable for the last 27 years, but it was the introduction of Curriculum 2000, when A levels went modular, that saw the beginning of the real acceleration in the top grades.
When you take into account the effects of that one change, the true surprise is that it’s taking so long for the pass rate to reach 100%.
Throughout their two-year course, module results provide A level stu-dents with accurate feedback on their progress and likelihood of success while the modular system allows them to abort the course at any point without ‘certificating’ or recording a result. In the circumstances, it could be argued that it requires heroic determination – or epic stupidity – to persevere with a course in which all your intermediate results have assured you of the inevitability of failure.
The AS results, taken at the end of the first year, provide some indication of the scale of this sifting effect. There, the national pass rate is around 85%, much closer to the pass rates the carping critics would like to see, and even then, a great many AS results are never certificated, so a great deal of bad news simply vanishes as though it had never been. That goes a long way towards narrowing the gap between the pass rates of 27 years ago and those of today.
But what about the rise in the top grades? Surely that can only be accounted for by less challenging exams? At this point I would normally trot out the argument
records at both GCSE and A level that place us in the very front rank of schools…
that the steady improvement in athletics records has not led us to suspect that tracks have been shortened, but, reeling from the advent of Usain Bolt, that might point to a conclusion that today’s A level students are all once-in-a-lifetime freaks of nature, so I’ll try a different simile.
Imagine you have a hundredweight (50 kg) sack of coal to carry up a flight of stairs. You might struggle to do it in one lift, but if you made ten trips with five kilograms of coal in a bucket you would succeed and the desired outcome would be identical. The coal would be no less in quantity or quality and would be in the place you wanted it to be: at the top of the stairs. That, essentially, is the differ-ence between a terminal and a modular examination system. The standard may remain the same, but the method of examining makes it possible for more people to reach it.
Add to this the much greater transpar-ency about mark schemes; the INSET on examination technique provided by Awarding Bodies themselves; the right to see photocopies of marked scripts and challenge results; the de-mystifica-tion of the whole process compared with the arcane, inscrutable and deeply inconsistent rituals of the supposed golden age of examining and, above all, perhaps, the opportunity for candidates to re-take modules in which they have underperformed and there isn’t really much more needed to account for the relentless rise in grades.
As Mike Cresswell, the Chief Executive of AQA, has noted, if A levels really were being dumbed-down, you would expect to see a uniform improvement in all parts of the system, yet, as Dr Cresswell again notes, there are variations by region and by sector. Among the latter, the increase of 2.1% in the proportion (now over 50%) of A grades scored by the inde-pendent sector, if translated into world hundred-metre record-beating terms, would leave even Usain Bolt looking flat footed.
However, to be able to prove that the problem of grade inflation is not due to lowered standards, but has rational and predictable causes is not the same thing as solving it, and it is a problem that is driving Admissions Tutors at the most selective universities to ever more rec-ondite ways of differentiating between perfectly-qualified candidates.
The answer must be for selector univer-sities to follow the lead of Cambridge and Imperial in making use of the new A* grade at the earliest possible opportunity, resisting the pressure from Government to delay. The pressure is politically-moti-vated; as the admirable Dr Cresswell has pointed out, statistically, it is almost certain that the highest proportion of A* grades will go to students educated in the independent sector. This will be politi-cally embarrassing and starkly expose the degree to which the Government is putting pressure on universities to socially-engineer their intake according to criteria other than proven academic ability. For tunately, most universities value their academic freedoms enough to resist.
You could hardly make it up: universities complain that reforms to A level have deprived them of the means of discrimi-nating between the best candidates, and ask for a new tool to help them do so. The Government tasks the Awarding Bodies with providing such a tool and they come up with one that looks as though it will meet their requirements. The Government then warns universi-ties not to use it in case it does exactly what it says on the tin and interferes with their Widening-Access agenda. The more pusillanimous universities, afraid of offending their paymasters, do as they’re told.
But there is not, and never has been, any conspiracy of the sort the Prime Minister claimed in his ignorant comments of ten years ago in what became universally known as the Laura Spence Affair. The problem is a lack of aspiration.
As the Sutton Trust has belatedly realised, universities can’t offer places to people who don’t apply, nor to candidates who have done the wrong subjects at A level and Alan Milburn in his report on social mobility has come to a similar conclusion.
It is a further chapter in the saga of unintended consequences in which edu-cation policy appears to specialise and which has culminated in ‘The Summer of the Great Betrayal’.
This country enjoys a real public benefit in having highly-educated young people qualifying from schools like this to go to first-class universities to study subjects that are crucial to the social and eco-nomic well-being of the country and
for which there is certainly not a queue of disappointed applicants from state sector schools, but this summer has seen extraordinary pressure on university places, the legacy of incoherent Gov-ernment policy and a lack of joined-up thinking over the past ten years.
The story runs thus: In 2000, A levels are reformed to make them more acces-sible. In 2002 the failure to pilot the A2 exam properly results in the prospect of an unprecedented improvement in grades. Awarding Bodies come under pressure to rig the results and the fiasco is exposed by Heads’ associations, chiefly HMC, resulting in ministerial resignations. More young people get the higher grades that will qualify them for university. Mean-while, the Government publishes a target of 50% of young people to be in Higher Education, but without a commensurate guarantee of increased funding. Simulta-neously, the introduction of tuition fees is justified by rhetoric about the lifetime-earnings premium achieved by graduates, based on partial evidence and the status quo ante when graduates had a degree of rarity value in the job market.
Young people buy into the Government’s rhetoric without realising that though all degrees are supposed to be equal, some are manifestly more equal than others, and not every degree from every Higher-Education Institution is a golden road to guaranteed riches. Meanwhile, they accrue end-of-course debts now estimated at £23,000. Summer 2009 delivers these graduates into the middle of a recession and a dearth of graduate-level – indeed any level – employment opportunities.
In the same year, the latest and largest generation of school leavers to believe the Government’s promises, applies to university only to find that the cash-strapped Government has capped the number of places available, threatened universities with financial penalties for exceeding their recruitment targets and put an artificial ceiling on the number of places available for home students.
And then, last week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Devel-opment (OECD) reported that in the UK, only 39 per cent of school leavers went on to gain a degree in 2007, placing the UK 11th out 26 developed nations. Numbers have barely increased since
2000 when the UK was joint third in the rankings.
Nice work Gordon.
That our own candidates have been, and almost always are, so successful in securing places, even if, on occasion, they dip below their conditional offer, is a tribute to the excellence of the advice on appropriate subjects and courses available at schools such as this and all too rare in other sectors. This final stage in the experience of an education at St Albans School is down to the collec-tive skills and experience of our sixth form team and I want to close today by paying tribute to a colleague who has done more than anyone else to build that expertise; Phil Talbot, who retired at the end of last academic year, after 28 years at the School, and an immensely distinguished 22-year career in charge of university applications and Sixth Form guidance during which more than 3,000 Sixth Form leavers have cause to be grateful for his advice and guidance. On this day for celebrating achievement, to him, and indeed to all my colleagues, teaching and non-teaching, I offer thanks on my own behalf and on yours.
SUMMARY OF STATISTICS
RESULTS IN PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS
5TH FORM - GCSE 2007 2008 2009
Candidature 137 137 115
Percentage grades A* – C 99 100 100
Percentage grades A* and A 70 81 88
Percentage of candidates gaining grades A* – C in at least 5 subjects 100 100 100
Percentage of candidates gaining A* – C in English 100 100 100
Percentage of candidates gaining A* – C in Mathematics 100 100 100
U6 - A LEVEL
Candidature 105 114 126
Percentage pass rate 100 100 100
Percentage of grades A and B at A level 91 87 91
Average UCAS points per entry, including AS 109.5 107.9 110.9
Average UCAS points per candidate, including AS 439.5 427.0 452.9
All examination results are provisional, depending on inquiries on results and remarks.
ST ALBANS SCHOOL
Abbey Gateway, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL3 4HB
Telephone: 01727 855521 Fax: 01727 843447
www.st-albans.herts.sch.uk
At St Albans School, all Upper Sixth Pupils have taken at least three A levels and one AS level. Some of these pupils have also taken A and AS levels in the Lower Sixth. All Lower Sixth students are expected to study four subjects at AS level, with at least three being continued to A2 level in the Upper Sixth. In addition, all Sixth Formers take an AS General Studies course. All pupils take Mathematics GCSE in the Fourth Form. Most other GCSE subjects are taken in the Fifth Form.
Although we are proud of the examination successes of our pupils, we believe that examination statistics are only one criterion of educational success. We therefore advise that they be interpreted with caution.
RESU
LTS IN PU
BLIC E
XAM
INATIO
NS
U6 A LEVEL RESULTS
% P
ass
% A
-BTo
tal
UC
AS
ave.
100
84.6
1646
8.1
GIR
LS’ A
LE
VE
L
RE
SU
LT
S
Subj
ect
AB
CD
EU
Tota
lU
CA
S av
eSu
bjec
tA
BC
DE
UTo
tal
UC
AS
ave
Anc
ient
His
tory
135
00
00
1811
4.4
Ger
man
21
10
00
410
5.0
Cum
ulat
ive
%72
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%50
7510
010
010
010
0
Art
33
42
00
1291
.7G
ovt
& P
oliti
cs17
51
00
023
113.
9
Cum
ulat
ive
%25
5083
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%74
9610
010
010
010
0
Biol
ogy
1210
40
00
2610
6.2
Gre
ek (
Cla
ssic
al)
01
00
00
110
0.0
Cum
ulat
ive
%46
8510
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
010
010
010
010
010
0
Che
mis
try
126
40
00
2210
7.3
His
tory
218
00
00
2911
4.5
Cum
ulat
ive
%55
8210
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
7210
010
010
010
010
0
Dra
ma
43
00
00
711
1.4
Latin
40
00
00
412
0.0
Cum
ulat
ive
%57
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%10
010
010
010
010
010
0
DT
Pr
Des
Gr
21
10
00
410
5.0
Mat
hem
atic
s49
125
20
068
111.
8
Cum
ulat
ive
%50
7510
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
7290
9710
010
010
0
DT
Pr
Des
RM
35
10
00
910
4.4
Furt
her
Mat
hs7
01
00
08
115.
0
Cum
ulat
ive
%33
8910
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
8888
100
100
100
100
Econ
omic
s24
80
00
032
115.
0M
usic
31
00
00
411
5.0
Cum
ulat
ive
%75
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%75
100
100
100
100
100
Engl
ish
Lite
ratu
re13
32
00
018
112.
2P.
E.12
00
00
012
120.
0
Cum
ulat
ive
%72
8910
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
100
100
100
100
100
100
Fren
ch4
53
00
012
101.
7Ph
ysic
s19
72
10
029
110.
3
Cum
ulat
ive
%33
7510
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
6690
9710
010
010
0
Gen
eral
Stu
dies
56
20
00
1310
4.6
RS
1110
00
00
2111
0.5
Cum
ulat
ive
%38
8510
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
5210
010
010
010
010
0
Geo
grap
hy29
92
00
040
113.
5Sp
anis
h1
00
00
01
120.
0
Cum
ulat
ive
%73
9510
010
010
010
0C
umul
ativ
e %
100
100
100
100
100
100
Tota
ls27
010
933
50
041
711
0.9
Cum
ulat
ive
%64
.790
.998
.810
0.0
100.
010
0.0
Subject A B C D E U Total UCAS ave
Ancient History 15 10 3 3 0 0 31 51.9
Cumulative % 48 81 90 100 100 100
Art 2 7 3 2 1 0 15 44.7
Cumulative % 13 60 80 93 100 100
Biology 16 17 6 1 1 2 43 48.8
Cumulative % 37 77 91 93 95 100
Chemistry 17 5 10 6 2 0 40 47.3
Cumulative % 43 55 80 95 100 100
Drama 0 10 7 2 0 0 19 44.2
Cumulative % 0 53 89 100 100 100
DT Pr Des Graphics 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 60.0
Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100
DT Pr Des Res Mats 7 3 1 0 0 0 11 55.5
Cumulative % 64 91 100 100 100 100
Economics 17 12 9 9 5 1 53 44.3
Cumulative % 32 55 72 89 98 100
English Literature 19 8 5 2 0 0 34 52.9
Cumulative % 56 79 94 100 100 100
French 2 8 2 0 0 0 12 50.0
Cumulative % 17 83 100 100 100 100
Geography 19 11 4 0 0 0 34 54.4
Cumulative % 56 88 100 100 100 100
German 3 1 0 0 0 0 4 57.5
Cumulative % 75 100 100 100 100 100
Govt. & Politics 12 3 4 1 0 0 20 53.0
Cumulative % 60 75 95 100 100 100
Greek 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 60.0
Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100
History 22 13 3 1 0 0 39 54.4
Cumulative % 56 90 97 100 100 100
Latin 7 0 0 0 0 0 7 60.0
Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100
Mathematics 44 18 9 2 1 0 74 53.8
Cumulative % 59 84 96 99 100 100
Further Maths 18 1 0 0 0 0 19 59.5
Cumulative % 95 100 100 100 100 100
Music 1 2 3 1 0 0 7 44.3
Cumulative % 14 43 86 100 100 100
PE 7 6 0 0 0 0 13 55.4
Cumulative % 54 100 100 100 100 100
Physics 32 13 7 0 2 0 54 53.5
Cumulative % 59 83 96 96 100 100
RS 18 11 6 2 0 1 38 50.8
Cumulative % 47 76 92 97 97 100
Spanish 3 1 1 0 0 0 5 54.0
Cumulative % 60 80 100 100 100 100
Totals 287 160 83 32 12 4 578 51.5
Cumulative % 49.7 77.3 91.7 97.2 99.3 100.0
L6 AS LEVEL RESULTS
Subj
ect
A*
AB
CD
EF
GU
Tota
l%
A-C
Subj
ect
A*
AB
CD
EF
GU
Tota
l%
A-C
Art
712
00
00
00
019
100
Ger
man
714
105
00
00
036
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%37
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%19
5886
100
100
100
100
100
100
Biol
ogy
5253
82
00
00
011
510
0G
reek
(C
lass
ical
)6
10
00
00
00
710
0
Cum
ulat
ive
%45
9198
100
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%86
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
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ness
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dies
37
32
00
00
015
100
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tory
4827
50
00
00
080
100
Cum
ulat
ive
%20
6787
100
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
ulat
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%60
9410
010
010
010
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mis
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8897
100
100
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Cum
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8910
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Dra
ma
117
31
00
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022
100
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233
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026
100
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%5
8295
100
100
100
100
100
100
Cum
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100
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100
100
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100
100
100
DT
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71
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496
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115
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100
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100
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100
100
100
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9510
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5214
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100
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100
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100
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ats
65
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010
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5010
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100
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9810
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3160
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100
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8697
100
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100
100
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100
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88.1
98.1
100
100
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100
100
100
Subj
ect
A*
AB
CD
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l%
A-C
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ect
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AB
CD
EF
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l%
A-C
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ch15
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1510
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reek
(M
oder
n)0
10
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110
0
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ive
%10
010
010
010
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0C
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ativ
e %
010
010
010
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010
010
010
0
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hem
atic
s72
3910
20
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123
100
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igio
us S
tudi
es1
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110
0
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ive
%59
9098
100
100
100
100
100
100
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%10
010
010
010
010
010
010
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0
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. Mat
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s49
316
00
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tals
137
7116
20
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139
100
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ive
%57
9310
010
010
010
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010
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umul
ativ
e %
60.6
9299
.110
010
010
010
010
010
0
5TH AND 4TH FORM GCSE RESULTS
4T
H F
OR
M*
IGC
SE
ACADEMIC MATTERS:COMMENTARY ON EXAMINATION RESULTS
A LEVELS
GCSE
AFTER ST ALBANS At the time of writing, we have received news of the following outstanding achievements by Old Albanians at university this year :
Ben Davies (1978) has been awarded his PhD in Music from the University of Southampton.
Matthew Grant (2005) has been awarded a First in his MSc in Astrophysics and has been elected to a Bachelor Scholarship at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He will be remaining at Queens’ to study for a PhD in Physics.
Saajan Chana (2004) has been awarded First Class honours in Part II of the Engineering Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge and a Merit in his M.Eng.
Benedict Crampton (2005) has been awarded a Distinction in Part III Maths at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.
Pierre Hyde (2006) has been awarded starred First Class Honours in Geography from Christ’s College, Cambridge.
Matthew McLeod (2006) has been awarded First Class honours in Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
Ben Williams (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Biological Sciences at Wadham College, Oxford and has accepted a place at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge to study for a PhD in Plant Sciences.
Ed Pisano (2005) has been awarded First Class Honours in Mathematics at University College, Oxford.
Alex Pedder (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in English from Nottingham. At the same university, Anita Beveridge (2006) and Dan Grimwood (2006) have been awarded Firsts in History; David Weston (2006) has been awarded a First in Neuroscience; George Bragg (2006) has been awarded a First in Philosophy, and Georgia Martin (2006) a First in Psychology.
Anthony Williams (2005) has been awarded First Class Honours in English from Royal Holloway.
Rosa Kaban (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Mathematics from Durham University.
Jack Harding (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology from Manchester.
James Kerr (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in History from Durham.
Austin Dekker (2002), Chris Kelly (2002) and Michael Raffles (2003) have qualified as doctors of medicine.
Todd Davidson (2008) has achieved a First in Part I of the Engineering Tripos at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Luke Howard (2007) has achieved a First in Part I Geography at Magdalen College, Cambridge.
The percentage of A and B grades this year was 91.1 and the average number of A-level passes was 4.1. Using the UCAS tariff, where A=120, B=100 and so on, the average UCAS points score per pupil for A and AS levels was 452.9. This is the points equivalent of more than three A grades at A level, plus an A at AS. The average A level score per entry was 111, closer to an A than a B. 57 students, or more than 45% of the year group, achieved three or more A grades at A level. Of these, 26 achieved grade A in at least four A-levels or the equivalent, and, cumulatively, 47 scored grade A in three and a half A-levels (three full A levels plus one AS) or more, which qualifies them for a Governors’ Award. All of these are records. It is not possible to list all Governors’ Award winners here, but the most notable individual performances were recorded by:
Tom Blackie: 3 As at A level and one at AS, and a choral scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge; Oliver Bond: 4 A grades plus a Distinction in English AEA and Merits in Latin and French; Alys Drake: 4 A grades at A level, two at AS and an AEA Merit in Geography; Mark Edwardes Jones: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS and AEA Distinctions in English and Geography; Krishan Kanzaria: 4 As at A level and 1 at AS; Christopher Larkin: 4 A grades and a B at A level, plus an A at AS; James Leather: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Richard Leather: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Matthew McGhee: 4 A grades at A level, 2 at AS and a Distinction in AEA Geography; David McLeod: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS and ‘S’ in STEP papers 2 and 3; Nick Rawlins: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Nathaniel Samson: 4 As at A level, 1 at AS and a Distinction in AEA English; Alastair Smout: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Angus Williams: 4 As at A level, and an A and a B at AS; Cheng Zhang: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS a Distinction in History AEA and a Merit in Biology AEA. In many cases, the above also achieved other grades in additional examinations.
52% of all entries were graded A* and 88% graded A* or A. The average score per entry is significantly higher than an A grade. All of these are records. The overall pass rate at grades A*-C was 100%. 100% of pupils achieved 5 or more grades A*- C including Maths, English and Science. 59 boys – more than half the year group - achieved A* or A throughout all their exams and 16 pupils achieved more than 10 A* grades.
William Lay was the absolute top performer, with 11.5 GCSEs at A* , whilst Manhar Bhojwani, Elliot Fellowes, Geraint Northwood-Smith and Joseph Temple all achieved 11 GCSEs at A* and nothing lower. In total, 54 boys received Governors’ Awards for achieving at least six A* grades and nothing below an A grade in their best 8 subjects throughout their Fourth and Fifth Form GCSE examinations.
100% of Fourth Form students obtained grades A* to C in Mathematics. Grades A* and A were achieved by 90% of these students, with a record 59% achieving A*.
Lt Col HWR Eagan chats to cadets at the CCF AGI 1st May 2009