The numbers add up on A Level results day at Nottingham Girls’ High School

The girls at Nottingham Girls’ High School are always capable of rising to challenges and breaking the mould, ready and prepared for whatever comes next in their lives. Today they celebrate their A Level exam results – the first they’ll have received under the new Headship of Julie Keller, who said: “The past few months have been amazing, watching the girls work hard and enjoy school life to the max. Celebrating their successes with them today makes me incredibly happy and proud.”

With a 100% pass rate, A Level students at the school, recognised as one of the top independent schools in the country, are acknowledging and celebrating their excellent achievements today. They have consistently silenced the critics of single-sex education. 94% of grades this year are C and above; 81% are B and above and 52% of grades are either A* or A.

But one of the most notable successes at the school is its outstanding performance in Mathematics – traditionally viewed as a male-dominated subject often ignored by girls. With an amazing 100% pass rate in the subject at grades A* to C, of which 27% are A*; 73% are A*/A and 85% are A*/B, the school is right to be proud of its promotion of, and success in, STEM subjects.

Congratulations are due to all of the girls, notably Olivia Dadge who achieved A* grades in ALL of her subjects and can now take up a place at St John’s, Cambridge, to study Engineering – one of her passions for which she won a prestigious Arkwright Scholarship. Olivia has embraced STEM subjects throughout her time at Nottingham Girls’ High School and has reaped successes in Maths and Science Olympiads, and secured work experience at Rolls Royce as well as presenting an independent Engineering project at Atkins.

Bhuvana Sudarshan also did exceptionally well with A* grades in all of her subjects and is now able to pursue her studies in Medicine as desired. Bhuvana too, smashed traditional stereotypes with her subject choices and successes throughout school, becoming the Ogden Trust Physicist of the Year in 2015; enjoying continued success with the Gold CREST project and spending time in work placements at a pharmaceutical research company and a renal dialysis unit, as well as managing the Year 7 Chemistry Club and running Science workshops at local primary schools.

These results come at the end of the school’s 140th anniversary year – a year of celebrating the history of girls’ education in times of change and challenge. Nottingham Girls’ High School is the only remaining single-sex independent day school for girls in Nottingham, a fact of which Head, Julie Keller, could not be more proud.

Relentlessly championing single-sex education for girls, Julie said: “These results are a testament to the success of a girls-only education in which each girl has every opportunity to succeed and choose whatever subjects she likes, and find the path that’s right for her to make her way in the world. We encourage girls to take risks and push hard, but we also want our girls to overcome setbacks and above all, be happy. I’ve been around a lot of happy faces today and it’s brilliant. I want girls here to be extraordinary in their own way, and if happiness is a measure of success, then I’d say we’ve been incredibly successful.”