Pupils at Malvern St James Girls’ School in Malvern have been celebrating achieving places at some of the top universities in the country. 

Sixteen per cent of the cohort achieved a very impressive clean sweep of A*s and As.

Across all A Levels and equivalent qualifications taken, grades show 31% of pupils achieving A*-A; 62% achieving A*-B and 81% achieving A*-C.

Subjects which have a particularly strong showing, in line with MSJ’s reputation for its excellence in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) and its cross curricular approach to combining these disciplines, include Biology, Chemistry and Computer Science achieving  50% of grades at A*-A and Art achieving 67% at A*-A.

Pupils taking BTECs in Sport achieved a clean sweep of Distinction Star (D*), the top grade available; and those taking BTEC Food Science and Nutrition all achieved Distinction Star (D*) and Distinction (D), the top two grades, in this subject.

Headmistress Olivera Raraty said: “It is of course the individual success stories that count so much.

“The pupils who have worked their socks off to achieve these results and have had little public exam experience to go on.”

One MSJ sports scholarship student has already taken up her place as a prestigious Sports Scholar at Wingate University, North Carolina, from where her aspiration is to be a professional triathlete. 

A Founders’ Award bursary scholar who joined MSJ for Sixth Form with fee assistance has achieved her ambition of studying Business and Management at Oxford Brookes University. 

Mrs Raraty added: “This day ends a long period of anticipation for our Year 13s and they can be exceptionally proud of the results they have received.

“This year group was impacted at GCSE level by Covid, so they have no experience of sitting formal public examinations in the traditional way.

“They have been thrown in at the deep end with A Levels, which is tough.

“They have also been more generally adversely affected by an unsettling period of online schooling and physical isolation from their peer group at a critical point, and having to find their feet again on the usual school trajectory. I could not be more proud of how well they have risen to these challenges.”