GCSE results for 2007 were the best Chichester had seen for some schools

In fact, in English literature, exam boards congratulated seven candidates in Chichester for being among the top in the country – Katy Draper, Laura Grima, Harriet Neal and Sarah Somerset from Chichester High School for Girls, Joe Miller from Bourne Community College, and Emily Adams and Katherine Gammie from Lavant House School.

Ben Price from Bishop Luffa School scored one of the top five marks nationally for physics out of 14,845 candidates and Serafina Zdankowicz from Midhurst Grammar School achieved one of the top five marks nationally of the 101,000 candidates who sat the French exam.

Serafina had taken the GCSE a year early, at the age of 14, and was awarded A*. Sam Spearman, 14, also sat one subject early at Midhurst Grammar, his German GCSE, and was awarded A*.

Chichester High School for Girls saw 67 per cent of girls achieving five or more A* to C grades, and 70 per cent of all entries getting top grades.

Six girls also managed to achieve A* or A grades in every one of their subjects. The top set in maths also took an early AS-Level in additional maths, with 30 per cent achieving top grades.

At Bourne Community College, 54 per cent of students achieved A* to C grades. Jo Reeves, Tanya Pye, Greg Goss-Durant, Sadie Clayton, Alex Thorsby, Harley Jewer, Toby Adams, Katherine Hayward, Sophie Read, Tom Rason, Ellie Pearson, Amelia Moore and Lizzie Mann were the school’s top achievers.

Bishop Luffa School had 84 per cent of pupils awarded A* to C grades, with 76 per cent achieving five or more top grades. In maths and English, a third of all students were awarded A* or A grades.

Exceptional students included Hannah Atkinson, Toby Barker, Rupert Bedford, Jennifer Crockford, Rachel Burden, Francesca Gerard, Abbey Gibson, Anna Growns, Alfie Jones, James Keal, Sophie Knight, Eve Lambourne, Matt Leclere, Hannah Lithgow, Sally McCann, Felicity McLeod, Zara Noyce, Heidi Pointet, Lucy Scowen, Alice Taylor-Bennett and Verity Turner.

Manhood Community College had the best set of GCSE results in a decade, with 53 per cent achieving at least five A*-C grades, an 11 per cent improvement on the previous year.

Students at all levels exceeded their targets and the school exceeding its local authority target by six per cent. The school also had 86 per cent of pupils achieving five A*-G grades.

Westergate Community School, which had opened in 2000, had a 53 per cent pass rate at A*-C grades - believed to be the best results in its history to date and half as good again as the 35 per cent pass rate the previous year.

Joseph Martlew, 16, from Westergate, was one of the success stories among the 142 pupils who sat the exams, notching up six As and two Bs.

Kirstie Jones, 16, from Arundel, battled through acute tonsilitis to achieve an A* in biology, three As and four Bs – better than she expected, she said.

At Bognor Regis Community College, students such as Luice Rounds (ten A*/A grades), Christopher Love (nine A*/A), Emily Barnes and Joshua Greenslade (seven A*/A), and Fae Blundell, James Gallant, Tuesdae Houston, Samantha Saint, Kylie Skilton and David Goldstein (five A*/A) confirmed its reputation was as high as ever.

Individuals who exceeded expectations included Mehir Rahman and Elizabeth Bilham (nine A*-C), Joe Parkinson (eight A*-C), David Luffman and Emma Luxford (six A*-C) and Natalie Sylvester (four A*-C).

Overall, 49 per cent of grades were C and above and 44 per cent of students achieved five or more grades at C or above. Art, design and technology, textiles, leisure and tourism and PE produced some superb results.Felpham Community College put its best GCSE results to date down to the maths department being rated among the top in the country.

Among the individual success stories were 16-year-old twins Sam and Jack Ravening, Nathan Baggs, Matt Harris and Elena Stevens.

Midhurst Grammar School recorded its best GCSE results to date, with just over 60 per cent of its 231 students achieving five or more A*-C grades. Of those, 32 individual candidates were scored at A* or A in more than half their subjects.

Overall, the pass rate was 98 per cent but it was the A*-C level that was the significant figure. It was 13 per cent better than two years previously, when the results were an influence in Ofsted’s decision to put the school into special measures.

The 2007 results were real evidence of the sharply improving standards. High achievers included Rebecca Mitchell with A* in nine of her subjects and Vicky Vawdrey in eight of hers. Ten other students scored A* or A in eight or more subjects – Rosie Shaw, Hannah Grayson, Lucy Hatch, Emma Lampard, Sam Taylor, Sarah Baldwin, Sally Ralph, Maddie Ruissell, Bonnie Tadhunter and Guy Schmidt.

At The Weald School in Billingshurst, 73 per cent of students achieved five or more A*-C grades. Katherine Khoo from Billingshurst was one of five awarded A* or A in 13 GCSE subjects. Her brother Daniel had set an A-level record for the school the previous week with five A grades. The others four were Leni Wood from Kirdford, William Santa Cruz from Wisborough Green, Tara Finegan from Pulborough and Isobel Davenport from Storrington. Katherine, Tara and Isobel achieved 11 of the 13 at A* and William ten.

Lavant House School had 46 per cent of grades at A* and A, with an overall pass rate of 87.5 per cent at grades C and above, and 84 per cent gaining A* to C grades in more than five subjects. Top students were Emily Adams with seven A*s and three As, and Carla Edne, with five A*s and four As.