TEENAGERS from Wanstead and Woodford have been celebrating their GCSE results after months of hard work today.

Students from Wanstead High School in Redbridge Lane West crowded into their school hall to share their good news with friends, teachers and parents.

These come on the back of last week’s A level results, which showed that the future is bright for our A level students: with over 98% pass rate, 

Ella Henry managed to get 10 A*s and one A grade and will be off to the London Academy of Excellence in Stratford to start sixth form next month.

She said: “I am really happy because it’s my birthday today and getting these grades is the best present ever.

“It shows all my hard work has actually paid off.”

Her fellow Year 11 pupil Frank Burberry got full marks in his geography exam and got 6 A*s and 4 A grades overall.

He said: “I really like human geography in particular so I’m really pleased to have got 400 out of 400.”

WHS head teacher Bob Hamyln said this year’s GCSE results are the best the school has ever had.

The percentage of pupils with five A* to C grades in maths and english was 72 at the school, 18 points above the national average. 

He said: “I am relieved and totally delighted for our students, because now they can go on to do exactly what they want to do.

“We’re bucking the national trend, because I think nationwide results have gone down slightly.

“We have 10 students with all As and A*s so that’s excellent news - lots of happy faces is always what we want to see.

“We’re expecting high sixth form enrolment, because the pupils know we have a lot to offer them here.

“And I think the grades prove that the school is improving after our great OFSTED result last year.”

Over at Woodbridge High School in Woodford Green 69 per cent of Year 11 pupils got A to C grades in English and Maths and 25 per cent of them got all As and A* grades.

Forest School in College Place, Snaresbrook, had 12 pupils with straight As and A*s with some getting them in unusual subjects like astronomy and Chinese.

At Forest, 89 per cent of Year 11 GCSE grades were above a B, and A* was the most common grade for the fifth year in a row.

Conor Reynolds and Grace Palfreman both got 10 A* or A grades, while Jesse Chan got the same grades, including an A* in Chinese.

Grace Palfreman said: “I’m so pleased with my results. They were better than I was expecting. I’m really looking forward to staying on at Forest.”

Deputy academic head Jonathan Mitchell said: “We are exceptionally proud of our hardworking pupils and their teachers for this set of amazing GCSE results.

“For the fifth year in a row the A* grade is the most common grade at Forest, and our pupils add these tremendous full GCSE results to the amazing results they had already achieved in the Higher Project Qualification earlier in the year.

“At Forest we strongly believe it is the combination of strong academic learning at GCSE, independent study for the HPQ and a rich co-curricular life that characterises successful pupils, and enables them to flourish in the future.

“It gives us great pleasure to work with Forest pupils who excel so obviously in all of these areas.”

At Bancroft’s School in Woodford Green 58 per cent of Year 11s got A* grades, 89 per cent got A*s or As, and 99 per cent got a B or higher.

Emily Lord who got 10 A*s said: “I really didn’t expect this.

“I’ve got an A* in English and so many others, I’m lost for words.”

Bancroft’s head teacher Simon Marshall said: “This is a tremendous set of results from a really hard-working year-group and provides an excellent platform for their sixth form studies.”

Do you have a GCSE related story? Email news editor Anna Slater at aslater.london.newsquest.co.uk.