Exam Success at St. Lawrence College

Exam Success at St. Lawrence College Senior School

The anxious wait is over and those pupils who took public examinations at the end of the school year have got their results! Pupils who sat for IGCSEs, AS-Levels and A-Levels now know how they have fared in the exams they sat in May and June this year. And once again, 150 or so pupils have done themselves, their families, their teachers and our school proud. 

IGCSEs

Once again, the pupils’ results demonstrate an extremely high standard of achievement. In terms of proportion of exams that achieved a ‘C’ grade or better, the IGCSE results were the best over the last five years. 90% of all IGCSEs taken resulted in A*-C grades. That beats the 89% (2017), 88% (2016), 86% (2015) and 83% (2014) in recent years. In terms of what proportion of the IGCSEs taken were A*/A grades, this year we achieved 45%. Not as high as last year’s 50% but just above 2016’s 44%.

Stand out performances included Ioanna Moirasgenti, who took nine IGCSEs and achieved 9A*s. Likewise, Dimitris Monokandilos and Alexandros-Gazi Bsarat both excelled with seven A* IGCSEs each.

AS-Levels

AS-Level marks the halfway point in the two-year A-Level programme. This year, a grand total of 184 AS-Level entries were made across 14 subjects. The highest possible grade is ‘A’ as ‘A*’ does not exist at AS-Level. This year, 40% of all AS-Level exams resulted in an ‘A’ grade. That is the best proportion of ‘A’ grades for some time (2017 – 29%; 2016 – 39%) and reflects the high standards achieved by pupils in Year 12 this year. Truly excellent exam results from individual pupils included those by Efstratios Chatzieleftheriou, who achieved an ‘A’ grade in six AS-Level subjects, while Maria Avrantinis, Li Dan, Konstantinos Kapoutsis and Isabella Kontogiannis all scored four ‘A’ grades each across their AS-Level exams.

A-Levels

At A-Level, there were 135 exam entries. The highest grade that can be achieved at A-Level is A*. These are extraordinarily difficult to attain, as a mark of over 90% has to be scored exclusively on the work covered in the exams of the second (and more difficult) A-Level year. The 2018 exam session saw a greater ratio of A*s than in either of our last two years of exams. Thus, while in 2016 A*s were 6% of all A-Levels taken, and in 2017, A*s were 11%, this year A*s made up 13% of all A-Levels taken. A fine reflection on the quality of work by the pupils – and the quality of teaching by teachers!

Furthermore, a remarkable 80% of all A-Levels resulted in “C grade or better”. Among the very notable performances at A-Level were Ivy Hewett (4A* & 1A), Emily Holden (2A* & 2A), Alessandro Gressani (2A* & 2A) and Alexander Petropoulos (2A* & 2A). Absolutely brilliant!

St. Lawrence College A-Level school leavers are now progressing to higher education institutions. For most, this will be to UK universities, including UCL, Warwick, Edinburgh, Queen Mary, Sussex, UEA Norwich, Newcastle, Essex and many others. Some pupils will start their higher education outside the UK, including in the USA, Australia, Holland, Switzerland among other destinations.

Our pupils will be studying for degrees in disciplines as diverse as Medicine, Law, Development Economics, Mathematics, Modern Languages & Business, Human Nutrition, Communication and Media Studies, Zoology, Psychology, Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Sciences to name just some!

St. Lawrence College Headmaster Mr Phil Holden was understandably very happy with the school’s results, commenting “What wonderful results! As a head – and as a parent – I am so delighted and proud of all these achievements. I also want to congratulate and thank the teachers throughout the school who have contributed to the achievement of these pupils. I hope that these wonderful results will serve as an example and an inspiration to the younger pupils of St. Lawrence College, showing them what can be achieved through hard work and consistent effort”.