GCSE results for this year subject by subject

Top state and independent schools at A-level and GCSE - interactive table

A young ballet dancer determined to pursue a career in the performing arts was his school’s highest GCSE achiever with 11 A* grades.

Daniel Chard, 16, who has been dancing since the age of 5, juggled his studies with ballet practice.

He said: “Dance has always been something that I’ve had a fascination with. I’m not a very sporty boy and I suppose I have different interests to most teenage boys.

“But for me ballet is a natural passion which I feel happy doing. It has been difficult combining dance with my studies but fortunately it has all paid off. I’m still trying to take it all in.”

Daniel will stay at Brighton College to study A levels and hopes to become a professional dancer after university. The school focuses on the arts, with dance lessons compulsory for pupils up to the age of 14.

A teenager from a school that was on the verge of being closed 10 years ago has achieved some of the best results in the country.

Chris Lemmerman, 16, the son of a postman and a bank worker, achieved 13 A* GCSEs. He now hopes to take five A levels and study medicine at Oxford or Cambridge.

Chris, from Dagenham, East London, studied at his local comprehensive, Robert Clack School.

He said: “My dad’s gobsmacked and my nan started crying. I don’t think I’m any better than anyone else, I just remember things. I had some brilliant teachers.”

Paul Grant, the headteacher, said: “For a child in Dagenham to achieve that kind of output is staggering. We’re a 2,000-strong comprehensive in a Dagenham council estate.

“Eleven years ago the school was close to being put on special measures with only 16 per cent of pupils achieving five A* to C grades. This year it was 82 per cent.”

Ronan Burrows from Middles-brough also achieved 13 A*s, as did Rebecca Scott. Jack Baskerville, her classmate at King Edward VI Five Ways School in Birmingham, was awarded 13 A*s and a grade A.

A pensioner who left school at 14 with no qualifications so that he could get a job and support his five younger siblings achieved a C at GCSE yesterday in English Literature. Leonard Jones, 74, from Poole, Dorset, who served in the RAF, was married at 21 and had no time to study while working and raising six children.

“My education was in the war, living in Paddington, London, during the Blitz,” he said. “I left school at 14 in 1947. You can imagine what schooling I had. I did pass the 11-plus but I couldn’t go to secondary school as, being the oldest, I had to go out and earn money to help the family.”

Making the grade

“ I am absolutely ecstatic - really proud of myself”
Kayleigh Baker, 16, from Hurworth School, near Darlington, on her five A* and six A grades. She was banned from attending her school prom after refusing to attend extra revision classes

— Tom Readman, from Heaton Moor, Manchester, achieved eight A*s despite being left deaf and missing more than a year of his studies from the age of 14 after 15 operations for a brain tumour

— Katie Phillips, 11, from Watford, got a C in information technology, becoming one of the youngest children to pass a GCSE

— Identical twins Alex and Tom Dawes, 16, of King Edward’s School in Birmingham, achieved ten A*s each

— “ In the run-up to my GCSEs I didn’t do too much modelling but during the fashion weeks in September and February I had to take a lot of time off” Alice Gibb, 16, who has appeared in Vogue, on getting nine A*s and an A

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