One of the finest year groups ever to study at Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, today received their A-level results, setting the seal on their glittering record of achievements as senior students.
Two years ago, more than three-quarters of these pupils’ GCSEs were at the top grade (A* or 8/9); last year, they amassed the highest-ever percentage of the maximum-possible A grade at AS-level, and earlier this year, 40 Elizabethans secured offers from Oxford or Cambridge, outstripping QE’s previous Oxbridge record.
Today’s A-level results reveal that this path of success continued to the end, with 99.6% of grades allocated to leavers being A*–B, the strongest-ever performance for this key benchmark.
This headline figure was underpinned on the one hand by a significant rise in A-levels awarded A* – a 9.3% increase from last year’s 45.3% to 54.6%, which is another QE record – and on the other, by a reduction in lower grades: only two Cs were allocated out of the 487 A-levels taken at the School, and there were no grades at all below C.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Our Year 13 leavers are a truly excellent cohort of Elizabethans who have shone brightly over the years, accruing great success in public examinations and securing places at many of the leading universities on both sides of the Atlantic, including Oxbridge. Their results today reflect their consistent excellence: they should be proud of what they have achieved over their seven years at the School and look forward with confidence to the next stage of their lives.
“While academic achievements certainly count for a great deal, there is much more to being a successful Elizabethan than getting top grades. This year group has made a broad and impressive contribution to the life of the School, as well as to their communities, through engaging fully in our wide range of enriching activities – from drama and music to chess, sport and engineering – and by giving themselves to mentoring, voluntary service and philanthropy.”
Year 13 inevitably suffered disruption in their final months because of the coronavirus, with their A-level examinations cancelled and a special valediction ceremony that had been planned for them – a QE first – having to be postponed.
“My colleagues and I have been very pleased indeed to see so many of them back on site today to collect their results and to celebrate, in a socially distanced way, with their friends and members of staff,” said Mr Enright. “We still hope to arrange to have this golden generation all back together to celebrate their success at some point in the coming months.
“Over the last months since lockdown began, our teachers have risen admirably to the challenge of offering boys throughout the School a full programme of remote learning, using our eQE virtual education platform. I pay tribute to them and to the boys for the way they responded in such a difficult situation, and for the smooth roll-out of the partial reopening of the School that took place in the closing weeks of the Summer Term.
“We have detailed plans in place to ensure our full, safe reopening and so – fingers crossed! – I look forward to welcoming back all year groups next month, when they will be able to see the construction work that has now started on our new Music School.
“This is, of course, an extraordinarily difficult period for all involved in education. But our School has a long history, and, over the past 447 years, we have successfully weathered many great challenges: I am confident that we will do so again, and I am optimistic about the future.”