GCSES 2022: Forest School reports a record-breaking year

STUDENTS at a Winnersh school are celebrating its best-ever GCSE results.

Staff at the Forest said the results cap off an exceptional academic year, with a number of sporting firsts, including winning the National Elite Cup, as well as organising a Shakespeare Festival and welcoming a number of authors to inspire pupils.

They said the students’ success “deserves the highest accolade”.

Some of the highlights compared to provisional national data:

81% of students achieved 9-4 against boys nationally at 76.7%
31% of students achieved 9-7 against boys nationally at 22.6%
25% of the students achieved a Grade 7 or above in English against national 23.5%, (no boys data available currently)
32% of the students achieved a Grade 7 or above in Mathematics against national 24.5%, (no boys data available currently)
74% of the students achieved a Grade 5 or above in English against national 61.1%, (no boys data available currently)
63% of the students achieved a Grade 5 or above in Mathematics against natioanl 56.6%, (no boys data available)

Many students obtained a grade 9, the highest, in their results across subjects.

Shirley Austin, Headteacher at The Forest Academy, said: “We were delighted last week with the A-level results, and the year 11 boys have continued and broken ALL previous records.

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“Their results are the best ever, beating the last two years grades as well.

“It consolidates the accurate and fair grading over the past two years by Forest Staff.”

She said the school was incredibly proud of a fantastic year group.

“The year group has continually impressed staff with their resilience and perseverance throughout the past five years and especially during the examination series,” she explained.

“They simply live and breathe the ASPIRE motto through which, our students will continue to contribute to the local and wider community expanding the knowledge and skills developed at Forest.

“We are delighted to be able to offer the boys the opportunity to continue to exceed their expectations by joining our prestigious co-educational sixth form where we have more than 30 A-level and Vocational courses on offer, in addition to the many girls joining us this year to complete their journey of academic and personal development.

“We are very proud of our students as they always strive to achieve their best. It has been inspirational to watch our Year 11 students flourish, develop their self-confidence, self-belief, and motivation. These exceptional achievements were also supported by the inspirational teaching, hard work and dedication shown by all of the Forest teaching community.”

Ms Austin also praised her staff, particularly over the lockdown disruptions over the past two years.

“During the pandemic, the teachers demonstrated an unwavering commitment and persistence to provide the best learning opportunities for all students,” she said.

“This minimised the adverse impact the pandemic was able to have on students, their learning and future pathways. Everyone was already well equipped to use our Google Classroom infrastructure to work on enriched lessons whilst learning from home.

“I personally cannot thank my staff enough for their resilience during that period.”

The Forest said it wanted to congratulate all of its students, and highlighted some notable results, with all achieving GCSE grades far better than those predicted by their KS2 grades (which is used in the National Progress measure).