Comprehensives celebrate improved pass rates

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A substantial improvement in the performance of many of the country's comprehensives is revealed in this year's GCSE exam results.

For the first time in the history of the exam, two comprehensives managed to get all their pupils to obtain at least five A* to C grade passes.

One of the two schools with the 100 per cent record was Thomas Telford, the specialist technology college in Telford that became the first to achieve the feat last year. It was joined this year by the 1,200-pupil Coopers Company and Coborn school in Havering, Essex. Dr Davina Lloyd, the school's headteacher, said yesterday: "We managed to get 97 per cent last year, which we thought was relatively high and – to be honest – I wondered whether we could improve on the feat.

"It's really down to motivation. We have highly motivated children and highly motivated staff and very supportive parents. It's a tremendous achievement."

The school, which has its roots in the East End of London, still sets aside 10 per cent of its places for youngsters from deprived East End homes despite moving out to Havering 30 years ago. "We're not an inner-city school. We're in the leafy suburbs but we do keep our roots with the East End," Dr Lloyd said.

At Thomas Telford, where 167 pupils sat GCSEs this year, the school achieved even better results than its history-making pass rate for a comprehensive school last year. This year every pupil managed to obtain at least nine A* to C grade passes.

In all, 19 comprehensives managed to get 90 per cent of their pupils to achieve at least five top-grade passes, putting them on a par with the country's grammar schools. Slightly more than 50 grammar schools managed a 100 per cent record this year.

One of last year's worst performing schools was having to fork out £3,100 after promising every pupil who got five top-grade passes £100. Last year, only four pupils at the school, Kingswood High School in Hull, achieved five top-grade passes but this year the figure shot up to 31.

Kevin Beaton, the school's headteacher, said: "The incentive has been a huge success. It's six times as good as last year and we are really pleased." The money has come out of sponsorship funded by a local business.

Meanwhile, a girls' school was celebrating an entire year group of more than 200 girls getting their French GCSE exam a year early. All the 202 14 and 15-year-olds at Didcot Girls' School in Oxford took the exam a year early – and passed. Nearly three-quarters achieved a top A* to C grade.

Jeannette Hebbert, Didcot's headteacher, said: "We'll certainly do it again."