St Paul’s in Burgess Hill gets top GCSE accolade

The Burgess Hill based school has qualified as one of the top 20 per cent of non-selective schools in England for 2012, and staff and pupils released celebratory balloons when they heard the news.

Their outstanding success has been followed by further exceptional results in August this year, along with similar, outstanding results at Downlands Community School in Hassocks.

This year, 79 per cent of pupils at St Paul’s achieved at least five A* - C grades, including Maths and English, while Downlands confirmed this week that 77.3 per cent of its pupils had achieved at least five A* - C grades, including Maths and English, compared with 76 per cent in 2012.

The Middy also received confirmation of Warden Park School’s results this week. At the academy school in Cuckfield, 64 per cent of pupils achieved five good A* - C grades with Maths and English, down on 69 per cent in 2012.

St Paul’s has been recognised nationally for value added and attainment at GCSE in 2012, when 86 per cent of pupils achieved five or more good A* - C grades, including Maths and English.

The value added score recognises exceptional progress made by its pupils between their Key Stage 2 results at primary school and GCSE results at age 16.

Every school in the country was ranked according to how well they performed in their GCSE results in 2012 by SSAT – the representative body for schools.

The rankings, calculated using official data, compare how schools nationally performed by counting all students’ best eight GCSE subjects.

Sue Williamson, Chief Executive of SSAT said: “St. Paul’s Catholic College should be congratulated for their stunning performance in adding value to their students’ achievements and securing some of the best GCSE results in the country in 2012.”