Clapton Girls’ Academy celebrated its best ever GCSE results today.

Grades in every subject were above the national average and 83 per cent of students achieved grade 4 or above in English and maths. The national average pass rate for English across the UK this year was 59.2pc (down 4.1pc) while maths was 58.8pc (down 1.6pc).

The school achieved 114 grade 9s and 11 subjects were in the top 10% nationally.

Victoria Nkan was really happy with her grades. She told the Gazette: "These are the results I really wanted. History was a shock - I thought I would just get a 7 in the exam [a 7 is a high B grade]. I was like: 'Oh no! You really messed up."

But she got a 9 in history - the top score, equivalent to an A** - and grades 7 to 9 in the rest of her subjects.

Hard-working student Zenzele Kabara-Clarke revised in the library almost every day after starting Year 11.

She got grades 7 to 9 in her exams. She said was sad about being two marks off an 8 in Spanish but was happy with her overall scores.

She wants to continue doing Spanish, art and maths at A-level and told the Gazette about her love of languages - she's been learning Korean and Japanese in her spare time.

Twins Sarah and Tasneem Salauddeen helped each other achieve their excellent results, both achieving grades 6 to 9. Sarah told the Gazette: "I found it a bit hard studying for the exams. I just didn't know how to study.

"Then I started revising with my sister and revising together helped us. I remembered things she'd say and in exams I'd be like: 'Tas said that.'

"We aim high because we make everything a competition. If she does better than me I want to do better too, so that's kind of our motivation."

Katia Bennamane and Lina Namoun were also celebrating their results. Lina got three 9s, five 8s and two 7s. Top-performer Katia got all 9s and 8s. The friends told the Gazette how they didn't expect the grades they got and were both excited to study maths in the future.

Katia said: "We were pushed a lot to do maths with extra exam papers and got used to solving harder and harder problems. It was satisfying being able to solve them."