Joshua Champion, William Bell and Andreas Milan gained an A* grade and Alex Cotter, Beth McQuillan, Benjamin Warner, Alexandra Lawless and Beth Fennell were awarded As.

This is the first group of students who have been entered early for GCSE exams- as part of the change to our curriculum which has seen Key Stage 3 shortened to two years.

Eight out of the 55 students who were entered achieved an A or above grade in the Algebra based exam– which equates to 15 per cent of early entrants.

They will sit the next module in the spring and the final instalment next year. The students could then have the option to sit other maths based exams.

All of the students are in Maths teacher Paul Wilson’s class. The teacher started looking at the GCSE work with them at the end of Year 8.

Student William Bell said: “I think we have done so well partly because of ourselves but also because we have a good teacher.

Acting Principal John Henrys said: “The decision to move to a two year Key stage 3 Curriculum was taken in order to allow students to progress at a rate that suited their learning give increased flexibility in choices they were able to make in Years 9 to 11.

“The success we are starting to see shows that students are taking advantage of the learning opportunities that are being afforded to them and through hard work and dedication to their studies the results are starting to show.”