St Mary’s annual GCSE Awards Evening celebrates excellent results

Students who took their GCSEs at St Mary’s School, Colchester, in the summer of 2017 returned to school for a special Awards Presentation Evening on 17 November.

St Mary’s students received excellent results in 2017. Overall 92% of GCSEs were graded at C or four, or above with 90% of the 41 St Mary’s candidates achieving a minimum of five passes at A* to C, or grade four and above, including Mathematics and English.  There was a 100% pass rate in 13 subjects – Art, Biology, Chemistry, Dutch, German, ICT, Music, Photography, Physics, Religious Studies, Spanish, Statistics and Textiles.

Performance at GCSE has been consistently high at St Mary’s for the past six years, which is particularly impressive given the fact that the school is non-selective on entry.

At the school’s GCSE Awards Evening, last year’s Year 11 students – now in the sixth forms of a variety of schools and colleges including Colchester Royal Grammar School, Colchester County High School for Girls and Colchester Sixth Form College – were presented with their GCSE certificates as well as prizes for excellence in specific subjects by guest of honour, former St Mary’s student Louise-Jane Watts, now an Economist for HMRC. 

Louise-Jane left St Mary’s in 2010 and went on to study Economics at the University of Reading. She spoke about St Mary’s with great fondness, crediting the school with her career and university success and also for encouraging her love of swimming, which she still enjoys.

Mrs Vipond addressed the students: “Throughout your time with us you worked hard and made the most of all the opportunities available, and your excellent results are statistical proof of this. You fully endorsed the school’s vision that happy girls are high achievers. St Mary’s aims to produce strong minded, articulate, self-confident and successful young women and as the class of 2017, you fit the bill.”

The former students enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with friends and teachers and were encouraged to keep in touch with St Mary’s through the school’s alumni organisation – www.stmaryscolchester.org.uk/alumni