GCSE results: Clapton Girls Academy racks up 73% A* to C grades

Khadija Patel celebrates her GCSE results with her English teacher at Clapton Girls Academy (Image: Archant)

The 16-year-old is one of this year’s top performing GCSE students at Clapton Girls Academy, racking up an impressive eight A*s and three As.

The school in Laura Place, Lower Clapton, is celebrating record success, with 73 per cent of the GCSE papers achieving A* to C marks.

Last year the benchmark was measured differently – with 62 per cent of pupils there achieving five GCSEs with an A* to C mark, including maths and English.

“I’m so shocked,” Khadija told me. “I haven’t told anyone yet.”

“I came joint second at my school, which was ‘wow’.”

She had been given target grades of Bs and Cs, but a motivational speech at the school given two years ago made her up her game.

She explained: “I was your bog standard student. But the student who spoke said they wished they had started working hard in Year 10.

“I was always aiming high but it was only in year 10 I started working hard.”

She has spent “a lot of time at her desk”.

“I don’t really go out much. A lot of the time I’ve been doing past papers, highlighting textbooks.

“Talking about English after school with my teachers made me love it more and now I want to study that at university.”

Meanwhile top performing pupil, Lijé Johnson from Stamford Hill, felt “she could have done better” than her three As and eight A*s.

She said: “I was happy to see all the A*s. Because everyone around me was excited for me I thought I couldn’t have done badly then.

“I did a lot of work throughout the year but I could have done more.”

She is going to study Spanish at A-level, along with chemistry, biology and maths at the school’s sixth form.

Sumayya Patel, 16, from Lower Clapton, was happy with her four A*s and seven As, and is going to study history, government, politics and English for A-level.

“I feel amazing,” she said.

“It’s the fact that all the hard work finally paid off – evenings, weekends, especially towards the end all my time was spent revising.”

She put her success down to her revision strategy and time management.

“The teachers would bring in professionals telling us how to revise and how our brain works and how to study effectively,” she explained.

Tyler Ebanja was happy with her two A*s, seven As and three Bs.

“I genuinely thought I was going to fail them all and to know I’ve got A*s is a huge relief. I still can’t believe it.

“I have worked really hard doing revision non-stop. It was stressful.”

For more Hackney GCSE stories and analysis, click here.