All-boys school rivals girls' success with top GCSE results

Five boys at a single-sex school each obtained 11 A* grades in their GCSE results yesterday. The boys, from Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, were among the highest-scoring students in the country.

Their achievement bucked the trend on a day when national results showed that females have not only outperformed males in almost every subject this year, but have also widened their lead compared to last year.

There was a nine-point gap between the number of girls obtaining C grades or above (62.1 per cent) and the number of boys (53.1 per cent).

But the results suggested that boys do better in single-sex schools. Chris Clare, the deputy head at Dr Challoner's, said he believed it was easier to teach boys when they did not have to compete with girls. "Boys do better in boys' schools," he said. "That's partly because teachers can focus on the teaching methods that work best with boys."

Education experts say girls are much more methodical in their approach towards exams and benefit from doing well in coursework, while boys tend to do better in end-of-term examinations.

Four of the five – Andrew Acred, Richard Blues, James Munk and James Spooner – all celebrated as they picked up their results from the school yesterday. The fifth, Alex Baneke, was away on holiday.

The school was also celebrating the achievements of four of its pupils – Thomas Shinner, James Spooner, Peter Cant and Peter Johnston – who were rated among the top five pupils in the country in their English literature exams. The school sat the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance's English literature paper.

Mr Clare said it was "amazing" to have so many students from the same school among the top five in the country for any exam. The school's overall results showed that every single pupil sitting GCSEs this year obtained at least five top grade A* to C grade passes.

And the head of an inner city school that offered its pupils cash rewards for good GCSE results said yesterday that it was expecting to pay out thousands of pounds after most students exceeded their target grades.

At St George Community College in Bristol, the number of pupils who obtained at least five top A* to C grade almost doubled, from 13 per cent to 24 per cent. Each of its pupils was individually assessed and given a target grade in 10 subjects. For each target they achieved they received £10, plus a bonus of £50 if they achieved or exceeded all of their targets.

Ray Priest, the school's headteacher, said: "We are a school in challenging circumstances, but we are clearly on the up. But I do not think it is just down to the cash. This scheme has put a lot of fun into the whole process."

The surge in success has lifted St George off the list of schools that face the threat of closure from the Government.

In other schools, two infants set new records for passing exams normally taken by students a decade older. Arran Fernandez, from Surrey, who became the youngest person to pass a GCSE when he was awarded a D in maths at the age of five last year, improved on that result yesterday by passing a more difficult exam. He was awarded a B on the GCSE maths intermediate paper, the best grade possible. Arran is now seven but sat the exam when he was six.

One of the most inspirational results was achieved by Kiran Patel, a teenager with cancer who missed all but two weeks of lessons during his final GCSE year. He had originally planned to do 10 GCSEs and then go into the sixth form.

Yesterday, Kiran, a pupil at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in Birmingham, was awarded four Bs in his exams in English, maths and science after persevering with his studies despite having to endure months of chemotherapy on a lump in his neck. Happily, he was told his cancer had gone into full remission just weeks before this summer's exams.

Asked why he had decided to continue with his GCSEs, Kiran replied: "I felt it was up to me. I had worked so hard in the first year on coursework that I just didn't want all that hard work I had done to go to waste and not take the exams."

White Hart Lane school in Tottenham, north London, which is pioneering teaching refugee pupils in their native language until they have mastered English, was celebrating GCSE success yesterday.

It had the number of pupils achieving five top grade passes rise from just 10 per cent last year to 25 per cent, lifting it off the list of schools facing the threat of closure by the Government next year for failing to get 15 per cent of pupils through that hurdle.