At a time when government reforms have made GCSE qualifications much harder to achieve, Neale-Wade Academy continues to improve. This year’s cohort of Year 11 students were the first to be affected by the government‘s educational reforms. The modular system is no more and the early entry with multiple opportunities to sit exams for GCSE ceased to be a viable option for schools after a very late change to the procedures mid-way through the two year course. Despite all of these changes and the increase in marking rigour the Academy has once again improved for the third consecutive year.

This year saw highly significant improvements in the core subjects. English results were at an all-time high with a 76% pass rate at A*-C and this was backed up by excellent record breaking results for mathematics with a 70% A*-C pass rate.  Additional Science results were superb with a huge increase in the pass rate with a figure of 69%.  The triple sciences were particularly successful with a 95.5% pass rate for biology, 93.2% in chemistry and 93.2% in physics.

The gold standard measure for 5 A*-C including English and mathematics once again increased to 58%. This places the Academy in the top 25% of similar schools nationally and represents a significant shift in the overall achievement of the Academy. All of students are now in a strong position to move on to apprenticeships, college, employment or AS and A level study.

I am incredibly proud of the achievements of this group of students and they have shown what can be achieved when students focus on their studies and work in partnership with their teachers. The parents of these students have been very supportive of the work that we have done to give every student the best chance possible to achieve at GCSE level. The additional sessions after school, at weekends and over the holiday periods have come to fruition. Parents have responded positively and supported us in the delivery of these additional sessions and we have worked in conjunction with local sports teams to ensure that our students could still play for local teams by adjusting weekend kick-off times. I am pleased that we have been able to work with the local community to ensure success for our young people.

The future is bright as Year 10 students who sat their Core Science exam achieved a 100% pass rate and in addition to their excellent GCSE results a group of 25 Year 11 students sat their AS English examination year early and achieved a 99% pass rate. Whilst all students performed extremely well special mention must go the following students who achieved multiple passes at A*/A grades:

Paige Abbott, Chloe Baxter, Bethan Evans, Henry Galley, Eva Goodman, Kacper Gross, Christopher Harvey-Hawes, Harry Hensby, James Richardson, Ismael Saywell, Peta Searle, Chloe Spencer, Antonia Tooke, Emily Tsang, Megan McGrory, Caitlin Mills, Chelsea Morrison, Zoe Nosworthy, Laura Petrauskaite, Maciej Walerowski and Emily Williams.