The achievement of students at Bennett Memorial Diocesan School this year follows the well-established track record for success that this outstanding Church of England school has sustained over a great many years. Right across the two years of their GCSEs students have worked with diligence and considerable tenacity, both when working at home during lockdowns and once back in school. Throughout this time, they have been good humoured and determined to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by COVID-19. Their outstanding outcomes stack up impressively against those of former year groups, working in less disrupted conditions. The results are richly deserved and the students should rightly feel proud of them since they are the fruit of the same hard work and determination which we have seen year after year at Bennett.

Headteacher Jon Sparke commented: “Once again this year students have had to face considerable uncertainty in how their GCSEs would be assessed. They have absolutely risen to that challenge, making exceptional progress in their courses to acquire the knowledge and understanding to achieve impressive outcomes in robust assessments.”

“I am full of admiration for what are a brilliant set of results. The outcomes show, once again, that the progress made by Bennett students at GCSE is superb and would stack up positively amongst the strongest nationally, just as previous cohorts have.”

“At Bennett we offer a traditional curriculum of high value subjects which, taken together, represents a genuine challenge, so these excellent results provide the strong foundations for the next stages of academic study. Amongst these outcomes are some exceptional individual stories of students overcoming disadvantage and acquiring the powerful knowledge which will enable them to progress to further academic study.”

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank their teachers and other staff who have taught and supported students throughout their courses, and also parents who play a key role in supporting and encouraging students throughout their school lives. COVID-19 has brought to attention just how important working together as a community is in enabling young people to flourish in their education.”

“Our priority as a school has been to make sure that these students have been able to access the same opportunities to learn and develop as previous year groups. Whilst it has been challenging to enable the same level of involvement in a full extra-curricular programme, it is heartening to see how students have engaged with opportunities once back in school. We are particularly pleased to see so many coming back into school after the end of year 11 to complete their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award alongside year 10. In addition, many have now moved onto the Silver Award”.

We wish all Bennett students well in their next steps and, of course, look forward to seeing the vast majority further in the coming academic year as they return to study A levels following these excellent GCSE outcomes.