Newcastle High applauds girls in Year 11 as GCSE results are released

Newcastle High School for Girls released its GCSE results this morning in unusual circumstances following the Government’s announcement on Monday that Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs) would be awarded rather than those calculated by examination boards.

Michael Tippett, Head of NHSG, congratulated the girls receiving their results today and applauded their attitude and approach in coping with the examination cancellation and the recent national outrage at how A Level results were calculated.

NHSG welcomed the Government’s last minute change in approach to use (CAGs) which have been determined by a fair and rigorous process at the school to reflect the results pupils would have been expected to achieve had they been able to sit their GCSE examinations earlier this summer.

Mr Tippett said: “Despite all the turmoil of recent weeks, I want to offer huge congratulations to our Year 11 pupils who have produced an excellent set of results, providing a firm foundation as they move on to A Level and Sixth Form studies. In line with our school wide approach to improve academic attainment, we have seen an increase across all grades at NHSG. I am therefore delighted that all the hard work of our pupils has paid off in these most challenging of circumstances.”

Mt Tippett, who took over the leadership on NHSG in March 2018, has been steering NHSG through a period of change to deliver even stronger academic results than previously. This was reflected in significantly improved results in 2019, and the school has seen further improvement in A Level and GCSE results in 2020 in line with the School’s aims.

In 2019, NHSG saw an increase of 20% in its A Level A* – B grades, and a strong improvement in all measures at GCSE.

In 2020, NHSG has demonstrated further improvement at A Level with nearly a quarter (24%) of all grades at A *, 56% at A* – A grades and 80% at A* to B grades.

At GCSE, and as for A Level, nearly a quarter of all grades (24%) were at the top grade of 9 and 43% of grades were at grades 9 – 8, while 68% of grades were at grades 9 – 7.

Mr Tippett added: “As academic performance aims become reality, I never want to lose sight of the point that percentages and statistics do not reflect the individual success and personal journey of each girl. Our focus has been, and always will be, on helping all girls to achieve their personal best so that they can fulfil their own ambitions. Girls at NHSG can now move on to Sixth Form studies with the confidence they need and we are looking forward to welcoming them, and all the pupils at NHSG, back to school in September. We are hoping for a period of stability, but no matter what, we will continue to deliver an outstanding education whether the girls are in school every day, or if circumstances change, we need to deliver on line lessons via our excellent Guided Home Learning programme which we employed to great acclaim from March to July. We are prepared for all eventualities.”