HIGHLIGHTS ACADEMIC INSERTAUTUMN TERM 2009

School Sponsored Walk10th July 2009

The Chairman of Governors’ Prizegiving Address

EDUCATION THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT

New Chairman of Governors

Stephen Eames

Distinguished guest, ladies and gentlemen and students. Welcome to St Albans School Annual Prize Giving.

Whenever a large number of people come together in one place, issues of health and safety come into play. In case of an emergency, the exit doors are situ-ated to the side, to the rear and to the front. There are flotation devices under the pews and in the unlikely event of a sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks are probably not going to reach us from this ceiling.

After a few words from me, I will be introducing the Headmaster and then our distinguished guest of honour Charles Crawford CMG, OA who will present the prizes and conclude tonight’s event with his personal address.

The purpose of this evening is to present prizes to those judged worthy to receive them. I want to say to those not receiving prizes that you are equally valued and valuable. You will have contributed to the health and welfare of the School and you are in no way diminished by the lack of goodie bag from tonight’s event.

I speak on behalf of the Governors and I want to say a word about them. They are truly a dedicated bunch of talented people. They give their time and wisdom to the School and you have rewarded their efforts by producing a stunning set of exam results.

As Governors, we are re-examining our governance structure. We have to keep pace with the constant changes in education and society. We are propos-ing to streamline our approach to meet the challenges we face from political antipathy and the increasing burden of regulatory interference.

I want at this stage to pay special tribute to my predecessor, recent generous benefactor and long time friend of the School, Mr Ian Jennings. The state of the School today coupled with this year’s excellent exam results are fitting testa-ments to his dedication. Tonight provides another opportunity to show our appre-ciation of all that he has done for the School by this round of applause.

I am never quite sure about ‘mission statements’ but ‘to provide an excellent education whereby pupils can achieve the highest standard of academic suc-cess according to ability and develop their character and personality so as to become caring and self-disciplined adults’ will do for me.

In terms of academic success, this year’s results are nothing short of fantastic. I do not intend to dwell on the detail which can be found in the Headmaster’s letter to all parents at the start of term and also on the School’s website.

They are a credit to the students, their parents/guardians and, of course, to the skill and dedication of the teaching staff. To all of you, I offer my warmest congratulations.

The report of the recent inspection of the School said that:-

‘The School provides an outstanding edu-cational experience which is successful in promoting pupils linguistic, mathematical, scientific, human, social and physical development’.

I am as interested in producing well-rounded individuals equipped to face adult challenges as I am in them achieving high academic standards.

According to the inspection the school seems to have got most things just about right.

It was a year ago yesterday that Lehmann Brothers collapsed, precipitating a signifi-cant economic downturn, job loss and uncertainty. Between then and now, we have witnessed the naming, shaming and nest-feathering of our politicians. Perhaps all of those responsible for this unseemly lack of integrity (driven by greed, avarice and bloated bonuses) would do well to follow the School’s motto. It is time for honesty, integrity and trust to be restored and rewarded. I am pleased to note that the School has this on its agenda.

We are in turbulent economic times. The education we provide our children is probably the most important gift we can bestow upon them. For its part, the School will continue to provide an excellent product at as reasonable a price as possible.

I would also like to thank the non-teach-ing staff for their considerable contribu-tion to the success of the School. I would also like to mention the importance of the Development Office under the guid-ance of Kate Le Sueur. The School is not richly endowed but is keen to provide top quality facilities and meet its public benefit obligations by the provision of bursaries. The Governors see this as a very significant aspect of the School’s future.

Finally, we would not be where we are today were it not for the inspired leader-ship of our Headmaster Andrew Grant. In charge since 1993, his contribution to education has been recognised by his appointment as Chairman of the HMC. The School, under his stewardship, has grown in strength and reputation and I would invite you to show your apprecia-tion for all that he has achieved as I invite him to speak.

I am as interested in producing well-rounded individuals equipped to face adult challenges as I am in them achieving high academic standards.

OUTSTANDING SUCCESSES The Headmaster’s Prizegiving Address

Andrew Grant, Headmaster

it was right and proper… that we received multiple verdicts of ‘outstanding’ in the inspection that took

place earlier this year.

Chairman, Guest of Honour, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Abbey and to our 2009 Prizegiving.

It was on such an occasion and in such a place as this that an angel once appeared to a Headmaster and told him that, in recognition of his selfless, tireless and exemplary behaviour, he would be rewarded with his choice of either beauty or wealth or infinite wisdom. Without hesitation, the Headmaster selected infinite wisdom. Instantly, the angel disappeared in a flash, leaving a faint odour of sanctity and the Headmaster surrounded by a shimmering aura of light. There was silence. The audience were aware that something strange had occurred, but were not sure what. After an embarrassing pause, the Chairman of Governors tapped the Headmaster on the shoulder and whispered: ‘Say something!’

Summoning and sifting the knowledge of all the ages past and ages yet to come to which he now had complete and instant access, the Headmaster slowly surveyed his audience and his gaze was steady and sad and pitying and infinitely weary. At last, with a sigh, he moved to the micro-phone, and delivered himself of this truth: ‘I should have taken the money.’

We haven’t given our prize winners quite the same range of options, but let me begin by congratulating them all very warmly. For reasons I will come to later, we have an unusually large number tonight, you will have a lot of applauding to do and will have sore hands by the end of the evening, but let me include in those congratulations my colleagues who have worked so hard to help them achieve that success and the parents who have obviously started by bequeathing their children excellent DNA and gone on supporting them in their efforts.

But this is an evening for celebrating excellence and achievement and our successes this year are not represented solely by those young people here tonight. If any occasion is one for exercis-ing unashamed bragging rights, this is it.

For a year in which the press was glee-fully predicting the imminent implosion of the independent sector, courtesy of the deepest recession in living memory, we have had a remarkably successful past

academic year and we begin the new one with the School Roll at an all-time high.

Even before we get on to examination results, we can point to exceptional extra-curricular success: the First XV were declared Evening Standard Team of the Month in November and suffered only one defeat, by one point, in a long season’s campaign. They, and the major-ity of our teams, finished well up in the season-long leagues run by the School-srugby web site. The undefeated summer tour of New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands was a fitting end to their School Rugby careers for a number of our stars. The U12 team defeated twenty other schools from around Hertfordshire in

the Herts 10’s Rugby Tournament and took the honours in the final from the hosts, Berkhamsted, while in hockey the U13s took second place in the county in the National Minis Cup County Tournament.

The girls, too, had a successful netball season, beating the High School in the District competition and Loreto in an inter-school fixture, which are always satisfying results.

The cross-country squad had to settle for being merely the third best in the country this year, bringing the bronze medals back from the King Henry VIII relay title they were defending in Cov-entry and our senior swimmers were winners of the County league.

Our cricketers surpassed all recent sea-sons, with a clean sweep in all District Championships, the U13 County Cup and an 82% win rate for the First XI who retained the Bedford Twenty/20 shield and topped the Schoolscricket league table. Our number one Men’s pair retained the U18 County Tennis Championship and several longstanding athletics records fell on Sports Day.

The Joint Schools oratorio in the Abbey was a triumphant performance of Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace and then, over Easter, our musi-cians went off to Italy to give three

very well received concerts: at Olivo Camaiore, in Pistoia Cathedral and at San Gimignano.

Tom Blackie will be the seventh Choral Scholar we have sent to Cambridge in six years and this summer, one of our Fifth Formers, Freddie Sawyer, has been play-ing the title role in an adult production of Hamlet in our own open air theatre.

Our CCF has undergone a prestigious re-affiliation to the Coldstream Guards and nine of our cadets attended lead-ership courses at the National Cadet Leadership Training Centre at Frimley Park, one of them, Gareth Gibson, being named best cadet of the course.

It doesn’t stop when they leave: this year, an OA won the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst; there were OA athletics and cross-country Blues won at Cambridge, Friendly Fires – all recent OAs - are one of the hottest tickets in town, even if they were beaten to the Mercury Music Award last week and the list of First Class honours and higher degrees earned by OAs this year is the longest I can remember.

All this being the case, it was right and proper, but very pleasing nonetheless, because what is right and proper doesn’t always happen, that we received multiple verdicts of ‘outstanding’ in the inspection that took place earlier this year. What was particularly gratifying was to see the quality of my colleagues’ pastoral work recognised formally, the accolades for the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural dimensions of life at St Albans School and the fact that our links with the com-munity were also judged outstanding – an important factor bearing in mind the interest the Charity Commission is taking in the Public Benefit provided by independent schools.

That saga grinds on, and I spoke enough about it on this occasion last year, so I won’t repeat myself, but it is worth noting that the two HMC schools so far inspected have been declared to be operating for the public benefit. I’ve mentioned Sandhurst already, and if you look at the Passing-Out lists it’s fair to say that without HMC schools, this country’s armed forces would not have many officers.

The Commission, nevertheless, remains very resistant to the proposition that the £3 Billion, or so, that you, the parents, save the Exchequer by educating your children at your own, rather than the taxpayer‘s expense, amounts to a clear and widespread public benefit. I’d have thought it was quite a handy sum to find down the back of the DCSF sofa, so to speak; small change in these days of massive public borrowing, I know, but still enough, for example, to compensate those lowest earners who lost out from the Government’s abolition of the 10% tax band, if you can remember that far back.

That being so, I am sure I was not the only one to appreciate the irony of hear-ing Dame Suzi Leather, interviewed on the Today programme on July 14 dismiss-ing this notion in the very same week that the Government was compelled to announce – and I quote: ‘an extra £200m to provide new primary school places in parts of England struggling with shortages, [due in part to] the recession reducing numbers in private education’.

She claimed the argument was like driv-ing a private car and claiming charitable benefit for not using public transport, a simile which a number of entirely forget-table Government ministers obviously rather liked and subsequently parroted. It has obviously escaped Dame Suzi’s atten-tion that Public Transport in this country is almost entirely privately owned but still heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, whilst independent school parents are in the position of someone who owns a top-of- the-range car, but is compelled to buy a full-price rail ticket every time they want to drive it. In any case, we

believe the Commission’s interpretation of the law is fundamentally flawed and if it comes to it, will take whatever action is necessary to test it. In October, at HMC Conference, I shall have the opportunity of pointing this, and a number of other things, out publicly to the Charity Com-mission and the press.

And so to our examination results: records at both GCSE and A level that place us in the very front rank of schools in this country and on which our students and staff deserve the warm-est congratulations. Unfortunately, the

annual publication of results is always a cue for a festival of hand-wringing, breast-beating, finger-pointing and navel-gazing about whether or not standards are declining. In case this is a concern to you, I shall quote what I wrote in a recently-published article. Apparently other Heads have been copying it and sending it out to their parents, so perhaps you ought to hear it.

Setting aside the question of what the critics would actually prefer (What con-clusion would they draw from steadily declining pass rates? You can bet it would not be that exams were getting tougher; it would be that standards of teaching or students’ intelligence were declining) on the face of it, the evidence looks pretty damning: nationally, pass rates are approaching 100%; A grades account for more than a quarter of all results and the rise has been inexorable for the last 27 years, but it was the introduction of Curriculum 2000, when A levels went modular, that saw the beginning of the real acceleration in the top grades.

When you take into account the effects of that one change, the true surprise is that it’s taking so long for the pass rate to reach 100%.

Throughout their two-year course, module results provide A level stu-dents with accurate feedback on their progress and likelihood of success while the modular system allows them to abort the course at any point without ‘certificating’ or recording a result. In the circumstances, it could be argued that it requires heroic determination – or epic stupidity – to persevere with a course in which all your intermediate results have assured you of the inevitability of failure.

The AS results, taken at the end of the first year, provide some indication of the scale of this sifting effect. There, the national pass rate is around 85%, much closer to the pass rates the carping critics would like to see, and even then, a great many AS results are never certificated, so a great deal of bad news simply vanishes as though it had never been. That goes a long way towards narrowing the gap between the pass rates of 27 years ago and those of today.

But what about the rise in the top grades? Surely that can only be accounted for by less challenging exams? At this point I would normally trot out the argument

records at both GCSE and A level that place us in the very front rank of schools…

that the steady improvement in athletics records has not led us to suspect that tracks have been shortened, but, reeling from the advent of Usain Bolt, that might point to a conclusion that today’s A level students are all once-in-a-lifetime freaks of nature, so I’ll try a different simile.

Imagine you have a hundredweight (50 kg) sack of coal to carry up a flight of stairs. You might struggle to do it in one lift, but if you made ten trips with five kilograms of coal in a bucket you would succeed and the desired outcome would be identical. The coal would be no less in quantity or quality and would be in the place you wanted it to be: at the top of the stairs. That, essentially, is the differ-ence between a terminal and a modular examination system. The standard may remain the same, but the method of examining makes it possible for more people to reach it.

Add to this the much greater transpar-ency about mark schemes; the INSET on examination technique provided by Awarding Bodies themselves; the right to see photocopies of marked scripts and challenge results; the de-mystifica-tion of the whole process compared with the arcane, inscrutable and deeply inconsistent rituals of the supposed golden age of examining and, above all, perhaps, the opportunity for candidates to re-take modules in which they have underperformed and there isn’t really much more needed to account for the relentless rise in grades.

As Mike Cresswell, the Chief Executive of AQA, has noted, if A levels really were being dumbed-down, you would expect to see a uniform improvement in all parts of the system, yet, as Dr Cresswell again notes, there are variations by region and by sector. Among the latter, the increase of 2.1% in the proportion (now over 50%) of A grades scored by the inde-pendent sector, if translated into world hundred-metre record-beating terms, would leave even Usain Bolt looking flat footed.

However, to be able to prove that the problem of grade inflation is not due to lowered standards, but has rational and predictable causes is not the same thing as solving it, and it is a problem that is driving Admissions Tutors at the most selective universities to ever more rec-ondite ways of differentiating between perfectly-qualified candidates.

The answer must be for selector univer-sities to follow the lead of Cambridge and Imperial in making use of the new A* grade at the earliest possible opportunity, resisting the pressure from Government to delay. The pressure is politically-moti-vated; as the admirable Dr Cresswell has pointed out, statistically, it is almost certain that the highest proportion of A* grades will go to students educated in the independent sector. This will be politi-cally embarrassing and starkly expose the degree to which the Government is putting pressure on universities to socially-engineer their intake according to criteria other than proven academic ability. For tunately, most universities value their academic freedoms enough to resist.

You could hardly make it up: universities complain that reforms to A level have deprived them of the means of discrimi-nating between the best candidates, and ask for a new tool to help them do so. The Government tasks the Awarding Bodies with providing such a tool and they come up with one that looks as though it will meet their requirements. The Government then warns universi-ties not to use it in case it does exactly what it says on the tin and interferes with their Widening-Access agenda. The more pusillanimous universities, afraid of offending their paymasters, do as they’re told.

But there is not, and never has been, any conspiracy of the sort the Prime Minister claimed in his ignorant comments of ten years ago in what became universally known as the Laura Spence Affair. The problem is a lack of aspiration.

As the Sutton Trust has belatedly realised, universities can’t offer places to people who don’t apply, nor to candidates who have done the wrong subjects at A level and Alan Milburn in his report on social mobility has come to a similar conclusion.

It is a further chapter in the saga of unintended consequences in which edu-cation policy appears to specialise and which has culminated in ‘The Summer of the Great Betrayal’.

This country enjoys a real public benefit in having highly-educated young people qualifying from schools like this to go to first-class universities to study subjects that are crucial to the social and eco-nomic well-being of the country and

for which there is certainly not a queue of disappointed applicants from state sector schools, but this summer has seen extraordinary pressure on university places, the legacy of incoherent Gov-ernment policy and a lack of joined-up thinking over the past ten years.

The story runs thus: In 2000, A levels are reformed to make them more acces-sible. In 2002 the failure to pilot the A2 exam properly results in the prospect of an unprecedented improvement in grades. Awarding Bodies come under pressure to rig the results and the fiasco is exposed by Heads’ associations, chiefly HMC, resulting in ministerial resignations. More young people get the higher grades that will qualify them for university. Mean-while, the Government publishes a target of 50% of young people to be in Higher Education, but without a commensurate guarantee of increased funding. Simulta-neously, the introduction of tuition fees is justified by rhetoric about the lifetime-earnings premium achieved by graduates, based on partial evidence and the status quo ante when graduates had a degree of rarity value in the job market.

Young people buy into the Government’s rhetoric without realising that though all degrees are supposed to be equal, some are manifestly more equal than others, and not every degree from every Higher-Education Institution is a golden road to guaranteed riches. Meanwhile, they accrue end-of-course debts now estimated at £23,000. Summer 2009 delivers these graduates into the middle of a recession and a dearth of graduate-level – indeed any level – employment opportunities.

In the same year, the latest and largest generation of school leavers to believe the Government’s promises, applies to university only to find that the cash-strapped Government has capped the number of places available, threatened universities with financial penalties for exceeding their recruitment targets and put an artificial ceiling on the number of places available for home students.

And then, last week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Devel-opment (OECD) reported that in the UK, only 39 per cent of school leavers went on to gain a degree in 2007, placing the UK 11th out 26 developed nations. Numbers have barely increased since

2000 when the UK was joint third in the rankings.

Nice work Gordon.

That our own candidates have been, and almost always are, so successful in securing places, even if, on occasion, they dip below their conditional offer, is a tribute to the excellence of the advice on appropriate subjects and courses available at schools such as this and all too rare in other sectors. This final stage in the experience of an education at St Albans School is down to the collec-tive skills and experience of our sixth form team and I want to close today by paying tribute to a colleague who has done more than anyone else to build that expertise; Phil Talbot, who retired at the end of last academic year, after 28 years at the School, and an immensely distinguished 22-year career in charge of university applications and Sixth Form guidance during which more than 3,000 Sixth Form leavers have cause to be grateful for his advice and guidance. On this day for celebrating achievement, to him, and indeed to all my colleagues, teaching and non-teaching, I offer thanks on my own behalf and on yours.

SUMMARY OF STATISTICS

RESULTS IN PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS

5TH FORM - GCSE 2007 2008 2009

Candidature 137 137 115

Percentage grades A* – C 99 100 100

Percentage grades A* and A 70 81 88

Percentage of candidates gaining grades A* – C in at least 5 subjects 100 100 100

Percentage of candidates gaining A* – C in English 100 100 100

Percentage of candidates gaining A* – C in Mathematics 100 100 100

U6 - A LEVEL

Candidature 105 114 126

Percentage pass rate 100 100 100

Percentage of grades A and B at A level 91 87 91

Average UCAS points per entry, including AS 109.5 107.9 110.9

Average UCAS points per candidate, including AS 439.5 427.0 452.9

All examination results are provisional, depending on inquiries on results and remarks.

ST ALBANS SCHOOL

Abbey Gateway, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL3 4HB

Telephone: 01727 855521 Fax: 01727 843447

www.st-albans.herts.sch.uk

At St Albans School, all Upper Sixth Pupils have taken at least three A levels and one AS level. Some of these pupils have also taken A and AS levels in the Lower Sixth. All Lower Sixth students are expected to study four subjects at AS level, with at least three being continued to A2 level in the Upper Sixth. In addition, all Sixth Formers take an AS General Studies course. All pupils take Mathematics GCSE in the Fourth Form. Most other GCSE subjects are taken in the Fifth Form.

Although we are proud of the examination successes of our pupils, we believe that examination statistics are only one criterion of educational success. We therefore advise that they be interpreted with caution.

RESU

LTS IN PU

BLIC E

XAM

INATIO

NS

U6 A LEVEL RESULTS

% P

ass

% A

-BTo

tal

UC

AS

ave.

100

84.6

1646

8.1

GIR

LS’ A

LE

VE

L

RE

SU

LT

S

Subj

ect

AB

CD

EU

Tota

lU

CA

S av

eSu

bjec

tA

BC

DE

UTo

tal

UC

AS

ave

Anc

ient

His

tory

135

00

00

1811

4.4

Ger

man

21

10

00

410

5.0

Cum

ulat

ive

%72

100

100

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%50

7510

010

010

010

0

Art

33

42

00

1291

.7G

ovt

& P

oliti

cs17

51

00

023

113.

9

Cum

ulat

ive

%25

5083

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%74

9610

010

010

010

0

Biol

ogy

1210

40

00

2610

6.2

Gre

ek (

Cla

ssic

al)

01

00

00

110

0.0

Cum

ulat

ive

%46

8510

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

010

010

010

010

010

0

Che

mis

try

126

40

00

2210

7.3

His

tory

218

00

00

2911

4.5

Cum

ulat

ive

%55

8210

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

7210

010

010

010

010

0

Dra

ma

43

00

00

711

1.4

Latin

40

00

00

412

0.0

Cum

ulat

ive

%57

100

100

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%10

010

010

010

010

010

0

DT

Pr

Des

Gr

21

10

00

410

5.0

Mat

hem

atic

s49

125

20

068

111.

8

Cum

ulat

ive

%50

7510

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

7290

9710

010

010

0

DT

Pr

Des

RM

35

10

00

910

4.4

Furt

her

Mat

hs7

01

00

08

115.

0

Cum

ulat

ive

%33

8910

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

8888

100

100

100

100

Econ

omic

s24

80

00

032

115.

0M

usic

31

00

00

411

5.0

Cum

ulat

ive

%75

100

100

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%75

100

100

100

100

100

Engl

ish

Lite

ratu

re13

32

00

018

112.

2P.

E.12

00

00

012

120.

0

Cum

ulat

ive

%72

8910

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

100

100

100

100

100

100

Fren

ch4

53

00

012

101.

7Ph

ysic

s19

72

10

029

110.

3

Cum

ulat

ive

%33

7510

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

6690

9710

010

010

0

Gen

eral

Stu

dies

56

20

00

1310

4.6

RS

1110

00

00

2111

0.5

Cum

ulat

ive

%38

8510

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

5210

010

010

010

010

0

Geo

grap

hy29

92

00

040

113.

5Sp

anis

h1

00

00

01

120.

0

Cum

ulat

ive

%73

9510

010

010

010

0C

umul

ativ

e %

100

100

100

100

100

100

Tota

ls27

010

933

50

041

711

0.9

Cum

ulat

ive

%64

.790

.998

.810

0.0

100.

010

0.0

Subject A B C D E U Total UCAS ave

Ancient History 15 10 3 3 0 0 31 51.9

Cumulative % 48 81 90 100 100 100

Art 2 7 3 2 1 0 15 44.7

Cumulative % 13 60 80 93 100 100

Biology 16 17 6 1 1 2 43 48.8

Cumulative % 37 77 91 93 95 100

Chemistry 17 5 10 6 2 0 40 47.3

Cumulative % 43 55 80 95 100 100

Drama 0 10 7 2 0 0 19 44.2

Cumulative % 0 53 89 100 100 100

DT Pr Des Graphics 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 60.0

Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100

DT Pr Des Res Mats 7 3 1 0 0 0 11 55.5

Cumulative % 64 91 100 100 100 100

Economics 17 12 9 9 5 1 53 44.3

Cumulative % 32 55 72 89 98 100

English Literature 19 8 5 2 0 0 34 52.9

Cumulative % 56 79 94 100 100 100

French 2 8 2 0 0 0 12 50.0

Cumulative % 17 83 100 100 100 100

Geography 19 11 4 0 0 0 34 54.4

Cumulative % 56 88 100 100 100 100

German 3 1 0 0 0 0 4 57.5

Cumulative % 75 100 100 100 100 100

Govt. & Politics 12 3 4 1 0 0 20 53.0

Cumulative % 60 75 95 100 100 100

Greek 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 60.0

Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100

History 22 13 3 1 0 0 39 54.4

Cumulative % 56 90 97 100 100 100

Latin 7 0 0 0 0 0 7 60.0

Cumulative % 100 100 100 100 100 100

Mathematics 44 18 9 2 1 0 74 53.8

Cumulative % 59 84 96 99 100 100

Further Maths 18 1 0 0 0 0 19 59.5

Cumulative % 95 100 100 100 100 100

Music 1 2 3 1 0 0 7 44.3

Cumulative % 14 43 86 100 100 100

PE 7 6 0 0 0 0 13 55.4

Cumulative % 54 100 100 100 100 100

Physics 32 13 7 0 2 0 54 53.5

Cumulative % 59 83 96 96 100 100

RS 18 11 6 2 0 1 38 50.8

Cumulative % 47 76 92 97 97 100

Spanish 3 1 1 0 0 0 5 54.0

Cumulative % 60 80 100 100 100 100

Totals 287 160 83 32 12 4 578 51.5

Cumulative % 49.7 77.3 91.7 97.2 99.3 100.0

L6 AS LEVEL RESULTS

Subj

ect

A*

AB

CD

EF

GU

Tota

l%

A-C

Subj

ect

A*

AB

CD

EF

GU

Tota

l%

A-C

Art

712

00

00

00

019

100

Ger

man

714

105

00

00

036

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%37

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%19

5886

100

100

100

100

100

100

Biol

ogy

5253

82

00

00

011

510

0G

reek

(C

lass

ical

)6

10

00

00

00

710

0

Cum

ulat

ive

%45

9198

100

100

100

100

100

100

Cum

ulat

ive

%86

100

100

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5TH AND 4TH FORM GCSE RESULTS

4T

H F

OR

M*

IGC

SE

ACADEMIC MATTERS:COMMENTARY ON EXAMINATION RESULTS

A LEVELS

GCSE

AFTER ST ALBANS At the time of writing, we have received news of the following outstanding achievements by Old Albanians at university this year :

Ben Davies (1978) has been awarded his PhD in Music from the University of Southampton.

Matthew Grant (2005) has been awarded a First in his MSc in Astrophysics and has been elected to a Bachelor Scholarship at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He will be remaining at Queens’ to study for a PhD in Physics.

Saajan Chana (2004) has been awarded First Class honours in Part II of the Engineering Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge and a Merit in his M.Eng.

Benedict Crampton (2005) has been awarded a Distinction in Part III Maths at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.

Pierre Hyde (2006) has been awarded starred First Class Honours in Geography from Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Matthew McLeod (2006) has been awarded First Class honours in Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Queens’ College, Cambridge.

Ben Williams (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Biological Sciences at Wadham College, Oxford and has accepted a place at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge to study for a PhD in Plant Sciences.

Ed Pisano (2005) has been awarded First Class Honours in Mathematics at University College, Oxford.

Alex Pedder (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in English from Nottingham. At the same university, Anita Beveridge (2006) and Dan Grimwood (2006) have been awarded Firsts in History; David Weston (2006) has been awarded a First in Neuroscience; George Bragg (2006) has been awarded a First in Philosophy, and Georgia Martin (2006) a First in Psychology.

Anthony Williams (2005) has been awarded First Class Honours in English from Royal Holloway.

Rosa Kaban (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Mathematics from Durham University.

Jack Harding (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology from Manchester.

James Kerr (2006) has been awarded First Class Honours in History from Durham.

Austin Dekker (2002), Chris Kelly (2002) and Michael Raffles (2003) have qualified as doctors of medicine.

Todd Davidson (2008) has achieved a First in Part I of the Engineering Tripos at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Luke Howard (2007) has achieved a First in Part I Geography at Magdalen College, Cambridge.

The percentage of A and B grades this year was 91.1 and the average number of A-level passes was 4.1. Using the UCAS tariff, where A=120, B=100 and so on, the average UCAS points score per pupil for A and AS levels was 452.9. This is the points equivalent of more than three A grades at A level, plus an A at AS. The average A level score per entry was 111, closer to an A than a B. 57 students, or more than 45% of the year group, achieved three or more A grades at A level. Of these, 26 achieved grade A in at least four A-levels or the equivalent, and, cumulatively, 47 scored grade A in three and a half A-levels (three full A levels plus one AS) or more, which qualifies them for a Governors’ Award. All of these are records. It is not possible to list all Governors’ Award winners here, but the most notable individual performances were recorded by:

Tom Blackie: 3 As at A level and one at AS, and a choral scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge; Oliver Bond: 4 A grades plus a Distinction in English AEA and Merits in Latin and French; Alys Drake: 4 A grades at A level, two at AS and an AEA Merit in Geography; Mark Edwardes Jones: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS and AEA Distinctions in English and Geography; Krishan Kanzaria: 4 As at A level and 1 at AS; Christopher Larkin: 4 A grades and a B at A level, plus an A at AS; James Leather: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Richard Leather: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Matthew McGhee: 4 A grades at A level, 2 at AS and a Distinction in AEA Geography; David McLeod: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS and ‘S’ in STEP papers 2 and 3; Nick Rawlins: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Nathaniel Samson: 4 As at A level, 1 at AS and a Distinction in AEA English; Alastair Smout: 4 As at A level and 2 at AS; Angus Williams: 4 As at A level, and an A and a B at AS; Cheng Zhang: 4 As at A level, 2 at AS a Distinction in History AEA and a Merit in Biology AEA. In many cases, the above also achieved other grades in additional examinations.

52% of all entries were graded A* and 88% graded A* or A. The average score per entry is significantly higher than an A grade. All of these are records. The overall pass rate at grades A*-C was 100%. 100% of pupils achieved 5 or more grades A*- C including Maths, English and Science. 59 boys – more than half the year group - achieved A* or A throughout all their exams and 16 pupils achieved more than 10 A* grades.

William Lay was the absolute top performer, with 11.5 GCSEs at A* , whilst Manhar Bhojwani, Elliot Fellowes, Geraint Northwood-Smith and Joseph Temple all achieved 11 GCSEs at A* and nothing lower. In total, 54 boys received Governors’ Awards for achieving at least six A* grades and nothing below an A grade in their best 8 subjects throughout their Fourth and Fifth Form GCSE examinations.

100% of Fourth Form students obtained grades A* to C in Mathematics. Grades A* and A were achieved by 90% of these students, with a record 59% achieving A*.

Lt Col HWR Eagan chats to cadets at the CCF AGI 1st May 2009