Viewing archives for School performance

QE boys and staff are today celebrating after achieving the school’s best-ever GCSE results. A record 69.8% of all examinations taken were awarded the top grades – grades 8 and 9 for English and Mathematics under the new grading system, or grade A* for all other subjects – thus beating the 2015 A* figure of 69.6%.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I congratulate all our boys on this outstanding set of results across all subjects. The figures represent a great deal of sustained hard work on the part of the pupils, supported, of course, by their teachers.”

Under the new grading system for English and Mathematics, grades 8 and 9 are the equivalent of an A*, 7 replaces A and grades 6-4 cover B-C (with 5 deemed a strong pass and 4 a standard pass).

I believe that the stretching of the grading scale at the top end, together with the new course content, may be helping to make GCSEs more relevant for the most able students.

Mr Enright added: “I am most grateful to my colleagues for the time they have spent in meticulous planning of exciting lessons for the new courses to ensure that they reflect our philosophy of ensuring that students engage with their subjects fully, developing their knowledge and understanding well beyond the bounds of the syllabus.”

“As I explained to the Times’ Education Correspondent, Nicola Woolcock, for an article published at the weekend, I believe that the stretching of the grading scale at the top end, together with the new course content, may be helping to make GCSEs more relevant for the most able students.”

The article dealt with the fears raised by some national commentators that the new system might increase the pressure on pupils, even putting their mental health at risk.

Mr Enright said he had seen no sign of that at QE: “While examinations are certainly important, the wellbeing of our boys is paramount, so I am pleased that they appear to have taken all the changes very much in their stride,”

“We urge our pupils always to keep things in perspective and one of the ways they do that is by taking advantage of the School’s wide array of extra-curricular activities. Our boys do not have their noses constantly buried in their books, but can instead often be seen playing sport, acting on stage or performing in musical concerts, to name just three examples.”

All 181 Year 11 pupils at the school passed all of their GCSEs – that is, there were no grades below C or 4. Almost half of the boys scored either A* or A (or the numerical equivalents) in all of their subjects, while 98.3% of them had five or more A*-A grades in subjects including English and Mathematics.

Performance as measured by points scored (from 8.5 for A* to 2 for E) improved over 2016 or was unchanged in 13 of the school’s 16 GCSE subjects still using the A*-E grading system. (It is not possible to compare points scores for English and Mathematics over the two years).

Highlights drawn from the school’s very strong performance include:

• 100% of pupils achieving the Government’s measure of five A*-C passes (or equivalents) for five GCSEs, including English and Mathematics
• 100% of pupils reaching the Government’s other key benchmark, the English Baccalaureate, by achieving passes in English, Mathematics, History or Geography, Science and a language.
• 100% of pupils achieving grades 7-9 (equivalent to A*-A) in Mathematics, with 96% achieving grades 8 or 9 and 70% gaining a 9.
• Twenty-three of the 28 candidates achieving an A* in Latin. This language was fully re-introduced at the school in 2012, so this year’s GCSE group is the first to have taken the subject from Year 7 all the way to Year 11.
• 96% of GCSE geographers gaining an A* or A in the subject.

Meet the students who defied GCSE predictions by scoring a clean sweep of grade 9s – The Telegraph, Thursday 24 August 2017

All Year 11 pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet pass GCSEs, with high numbers getting all top grades – The Barnet Times, Thursday 24 August 2017

Star pupils welcome the challenge of new GCSEs – The Times, Friday 25 August 2017

Top Boys’ State School: GCSE results – The Times, Friday 25 August 2017

The proportion of pupils gaining the top A* grade at A-level at QE has risen, as the School maintained a decade-long record of performance at the very highest level.

National education reforms meant teachers and pupils had to adapt to major changes in A-levels, but QE boys responded strongly, with fully a quarter of them achieving three or four A* grades.

This year’s results build on the successes of 2016, when the School enjoyed its best-ever A-level performance and, according to recently released figures, sent more pupils to Cambridge University than any other state school. (Its total of 27 Cambridge entrants was the joint-highest, together with independent Westminster School and with Hills Road, a sixth form college in Cambridge.)

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I am thrilled that our results are so stellar, given the enormous changes in the system introduced with the new-style ‘linear’ A-levels, which focus much more on the final examinations, rather than coursework, and have updated content intended to be more academically rigorous.

“Because the changes have been so extensive, it is unwise to draw too many direct comparisons with previous years, but I am nonetheless delighted to see that our results at the very top – the A* grades – have gone up: nearly 41% of A-levels taken at QE gained this grade this year.”

It is the third consecutive year in which the figure has topped 40%, while the proportion of examinations awarded A*–B grades at QE has now remained above 95% in every year since 2005.

Mr Enright added: “My congratulations go both to our pupils – who are very able, focused and committed young men – and to our inspirational staff: teachers here reflect our philosophy of ensuring that students engage with their subjects fully, often developing their knowledge and understanding well beyond the bounds of the syllabus. QE teachers are not content for boys merely to reach the standard required to achieve top grades; they want to do more than that in their lessons, piquing their pupils’ interest and academic curiosity.  I must also thank them for their diligent hard work to develop courses based around the new A-level specifications.”

Among the many individual success stories are Adrian Burbie, whose four A* grades secured his place to read Law at Merton College, Oxford. Prominent in the Sixth Form for his role in attracting well-known external speakers to the Politics Society, Adrian praised the school for teaching him the value of “hard work, integrity and striving for excellence”. He added: “QE made me more than just a set of grades: it equipped me with the skills I will need in my later life.”

Nabil Haque, who has been captain of the rugby First XV, will take up a place to read Architecture at Cambridge. Through sport and other areas of school life, he has not only learned the importance of excellence but has had his character moulded, too: “It’s made me a well-rounded person.”

QE made me more than just a set of grades: it equipped me with the skills I will need in my later life.

The Headmaster added: “Our A-level candidates come from all social, ethnic and religious backgrounds, and their success underlines the fact that QE is a thoroughgoing meritocracy: boys arrive here after succeeding in our competitive admissions process and then benefit from our ongoing commitment to empower all of our pupils to achieve the best possible outcomes.”

“Moreover, our leavers are well-rounded, positively engaged individuals, resilient and equipped to cope when things are not going well – balanced and able to maintain a sense of perspective in life.

“Once again, we have seen very good performances across all departments, while the achievements for Biology, Economics, Further Mathematics and Sociology have been quite extraordinary: six of the seven boys taking Sociology gained an A*, and 94% of our economists achieved A* or A grades.”

Boy gets straight A*s at A level at Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet following bouts of chronic illness – The Barnet Times, Thursday 17 August 2017