GCSE Results Day 2021

Bedale High School Press Release – GSCE Results Celebrations 2021

Despite another challenging year of school closures, Bedale High School are celebrating another impressive set of GCSE exam results this year. Headteacher Tom Kelly is determined to ensure that the students’ success is recognised. He points out that although the students did not sit their formal GCSE exams this year, the process they have been through has been no less rigorous than normal. ‘Our students sat two full sets of internal exams this year, adhering to the usual exam conditions throughout. They have studied hard, whether this was during the school closure periods, or once they returned to school in the lead up to their final exams.’ The GCSEs have been awarded through Teacher Assessed Grades, where the exams, classwork and any internal assessments or coursework have contributed to the final judgements. All marking was moderated internally, and samples were also taken for external moderation. It was an extensive and extremely thorough process that ensured the grades were fair and well-deserved.

All of this contributed to a fabulous Results Day celebration on Thursday 12^th August. The school were very grateful to several local businesses who contributed to the event by donating refreshments and equipment on the day. Thomas The Baker, Cockburn’s Butchers, For House and Home, Tesco and M&S Foodhall all played a part in making this a special occasion for students and parents. Exams Officer Lynn Riley-Fox was delighted, ‘Our local businesses have been so generous. It was lovely that they wanted to be a part of this celebration and it shows the strong links we have with our community.’

As for the students, the usual nerves were soon dispelled once they opened their envelopes and saw the hard-earned reward for all their tireless work. There were several notable successes with many students achieving a range of top grades from 6-9. The standout performance came from Lucy Shirt who achieved 11 Grade 9s, including an additional GCSE in Statistics. Mr Kelly stated that she was an amazing example of the school’s core values, ‘Lucy has never given up despite all the challenges that have been thrown at young people throughout the pandemic. She never lost her focus and she never became complacent. She is a lovely girl who is the absolute embodiment of our core values courage, commitment and compassion.’ Lucy will be going on to York College to study Maths, Chemistry, Psychology and Physics.

Mr Kelly was delighted with the day. Plenty of staff were on hand to enjoy the celebrations with students, and to ensure that they were able to secure their Post-16 progression routes. ‘We are so proud of them and you can see how much this means to the staff, as well as the children and parents. They deserve every success.’ 

Since 2017 our GCSE outcomes have improved every year. We have worked really hard to improve the quality of our curriculum and our teaching and learning (as acknowledged in our most recent Ofsted Report from January 2019). This continues to be a focus through the targeted training of staff and productive partnerships with other schools and organisations. For instance, we continue to be members of the Yorkshire Schools’ Teaching Alliance.

A lot of work has gone into the development of a clear assessment for learning structure through our 3 year GCSE programme. Students are taught how to revise and also given the opportunity to attend a variety of extra intervention and revision sessions.

Here are some key headlines from our last GCSE results in 2019:

• French exam results are in the highest 20% of schools nationally
• Geography exam GCSE results are in the highest 20% of schools nationally
• Humanities exam results are in the top 20% of schools nationally
• English Baccalaureate exam progress is in the top 20% of schools nationally
• EBacc Maths exam progress is in the top 20% of schools nationally
• EBacc Languages progress is in the top 20% of schools nationally
• EBacc Science progress is in the top 20% of schools nationally

Further details can be found at this DFE link for national performance tables:

http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=121670

BHS GCSE Results Trend (Key Measures):