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22 August 2019
The girls at Queen Margaret’s, York (QM) quite rightly jump for joy as today’s GCSE results are announced. The impressive results continue to improve year on year, perfectly demonstrating how QM girls tackle challenges head on and achieve anything they set their mind to.
This year it has been reported that GCSEs were ‘more difficult’, with the new grading structure designed to provide greater differentiation specifically for higher-achieving students. QM girls have certainly risen to this challenge with 20% of all entries achieving the prestigious Grade 9 compared with 13% last year. Overall, there has been a steady increase in the top grades secured by QM girls over the past five years with 39% of all entries reaching a Grade 8 or above.
Other results demonstrate how the North of England’s only all-girls independent boarding school consistently performs and improves year on year with 98% of all entries receiving a Grade 4 or above and 58% of all entries achieving a Grade 7 or above. Equally impressive, 97% of girls who took five or more GCSEs gained at least five 9-4 grades and 82% of all entries gained five grades or more at 9-4 including Mathematics and English.
Queen Margaret’s Head, Sue Baillie, is delighted with the results: “This is a fantastic set of results achieved by truly amazing girls. We celebrate the fact that our girls are unique and individual and QM’s wide-ranging curriculum offer certainly caters for this individuality. Our girls flourish through their time with us and we encourage them to take advantage of a wide variety of subjects which means that they excel through learning, evident in today’s GCSE results. This makes their experience at QM rewarding, enriching and positive for all.”
With a wide breadth of 27 subjects offered at GCSE level, results have been strong in all areas, particularly in Mathematics, Further Mathematics and the Sciences – which are offered as a dual or triple award. Similarly Music has performed brilliantly, further supporting QM being recognised recently as finalist in the ‘Performing Arts School of the Year’ category in the Independent School of the Year Awards 2019.
Particularly impressive is Leeds girl Olivia Hamilton who secured seven Grade 9s and two Grade 8s. Proving that you can tailor studies to suit your own particular interests, Olivia took a balanced mix of studies including English Literature, English Language, Geography, French, Spanish, Mathematics, Music and dual Science. Whilst Xanthe de Wesselow from Belsay in Northumberland proves that you can achieve brilliant academic results whilst at the same time pursuing a love of competitive riding. Xanthe represented Great Britain in the Charles Owen squad at the FEI European Championships for Ponies in Poland this summer, securing 10th place as an individual rider on the squad, whilst still managing to achieve a fantastic set of GCSE results, including five Grade 9s, three Grade 8s and two Grade 7s.
