Author: Paul Radmore

Year 11 students at Churston Ferrers Grammar School have enjoyed incredible success in their GCSEs despite an exceptionally challenging few years.

Individual stories behind the results were inspiring and, overall, academic standards were outstanding – 65% of grades awarded were at 7 or above.

Head of Year, Gemma Longhurst said, “We are tremendously proud of our young people, and what they have achieved. Over the last few years students have responded with fortitude; their ability to dig deep, take a mature approach and support each other has resulted in them achieving fantastic grades.”

Among those celebrating the results of their hard work, Freya Caskey-Sutton, Ethan Lovell and Awen Pringle achieved grade 9s in 10 or more subjects, including Further Maths. Whilst Leah Brown, Nina Keen, Lauren Lock, Sam Popham and Joe Yates achieved 8 or more grade 9s.

Headteacher, Kieran Earley was buzzing with pride, “Year 11 students deserve heartfelt recognition for their endeavours during their GCSE years. To achieve this level of success and academic excellence is testament to hard work, resilience and the commitment of our staff. I am incredibly proud of our school.”

Sixth Form students at Churston Ferrers Grammar School have enjoyed great success in their A Levels despite an exceptionally challenging year.

Amongst those celebrating the results of their hard work, Dominic Sloper has secured a place to read Medicine at Oxford University, having achieved A*s in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics.

Several other students – Edward Brown, Scarlett Howard, Ella Knapman, Max Pritchard, Felice Riley and Caristine Ross – also achieved 3 A*s, whilst another six students achieved 2 A*s and an A.

In total 40% of the grades achieved by Churston students were As or A*s, and nearly 70% were A*-B.

Head of Sixth Form, Adam Killeya said, “We are immensely proud of every single one of our young people and what they have achieved. A Levels are challenging at any time and to have come through two such difficult academic years, and to have achieved this level of success, is testament to both the hard work put in by students and the support given by staff. 

As well as our outstanding performers, we have many other students who achieved well despite particularly challenging personal circumstances. Every single student has something to be proud of.”

A group of dedicated students from Year 12 recently formed the Curious Chemists’ Club, with the aim of sharing their enthusiasm for the subject and extending their chemical knowledge.  The team have now been extremely successful in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge.  This competition is designed to stretch the best Chemistry students in the country and is so difficult that certificates are only awarded to the top two thirds of entrants.  Despite the odds, all of our students were successful.  Copper awards were achieved by Owen, Hannah and Jake.  The top quarter of candidates nationally received a silver certificate and this included Lottie, Sophie, James and Heather.  Special congratulations go to Hannah and Riley who were rewarded with gold certificates for being in the top 8% of students in the UK.  

The questions were particularly tricky this year, requiring our students to understand the structure of some really complex molecules.  These included the deadly poison digitalis (from foxgloves) and a human-like molecule called “Dame Bond 008”.  Many congratulations to all our students for their fantastic performance.  

Dr Hall

A Sixth Form student at Churston Ferrers Grammar School has been rewarded with a scholarship for her outstanding effort and achievement during her A Levels.

Ambra received the award, granted by The Reading List Foundation, which provides a grant to cover the costs of books for her university studies. 

She was chosen for the award based not only on her outstanding results, but on the challenges that she overcame to achieve those results 

Ambra is awaiting her A Levels results in Geography, French, Sociology and Italian, and has an offer of a place to read Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.

Head of Sixth Form, Adam Killeya, said “We are very proud of what all of our students have achieved this year, but Ambra particularly stood out for this award for her outstanding attitude and achievement. She is an extremely worthy winner, and we are very appreciative to the Reading List Foundation for offering this award”

A massive congratulations to Charlotte and Abi, both of whom completed their whole Gold DofE Award by finishing with their expedition in Wales last week. This means that they’ve done a total of two years worth of Volunteering, Skills and Physical, as well as a Residential. Abi went on a tall ship training voyage in January, and has since been recruited as a young leader for future trips. Charlotte did a respite holiday week with the organisation Go Beyond, and is also planning to return and work with them again later in the year.

Completing their Gold by the end of Sixth Form, having both done Bronze and Silver as well (and had much of their Silver interrupted by the pandemic) is an incredible achievement. They’re both such dedicated and motivated young people, and we are very proud of them! They’ll be off to the Palace sometime in 2023 to be presented with their Gold awards.

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader

Photos of an utterly fabulous Gold DofE week in Snowdonia, with an awesome bunch of humans. 30 Golds in 5 teams, 1 heatwave, 3 days of re-re-routing below the mountains for water drops and shade availability, 1 day of cooler scenery and mountains for many, lots of smiles, hugs and tears, and bucket loads of effort and achievement. Everyone completed their expeditions in fine style yesterday, and enjoyed a lot of pizza at YHA Kings, tucked away under the mountains. Just soul-liftingly ace.

This could not happen without an incredible team of adults – thankyou is never ever enough for the 18hr days, endless checkpoint lingering (in 35c 🥵), bracken bashing, tricky route reccying, cattle management and all the other things, with good humour (bad humour at times!), always saying yes to whatever is needed, and whatever time of day or night it needs to happen. Staff team, you are all just ace, now please go home and have a massive sleep!

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader