A presentation evening at Ellesmere Port Catholic High School was attended by the Mayor of Ellesmere Port Cllr Robert Crompton with the Rt Rev Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, being the guest speaker for the night.

During the evening the drama group, along with students from the music department, performed Kid’s Game and Tell Me It’s Not True from Blood Brothers by Willy Russell.

Headteacher Peter Lee gave a speech on the night, in which he said: “We set out quite consciously a few years ago to encourage greater aspiration to degree places at elite universities in the UK.

“Our students were capable of this and needed to believe in the possibility. One student was offered a place at Oxford and one at Cambridge this year, that’s four in the past four years alongside those taking up places at other institutions in the first rank.

“As usual, and the evidence is plain to see in your programmes, more than 80% of students intent on university achieved their goal at the universities and on the courses which were their first choices.

“Those were founded on considerable success at A-level and this year there have been some remarkable outcomes.

“Firstly, 40% of the results achieved were graded from A*-B. This is the best we have ever achieved and it is a remarkable statistic given the non-selective nature of our sixth form. Neither do we insist on minimum grades at GCSE for any individual subject.

“Both the average points per student and per examination result went up by 30 points. This is the equivalent of the average result in every subject increasing by a full half-grade in one year.

“Sixteen schools and colleges provide A-level courses in Cheshire West and Chester. Our total points score ranked us seventh in the list at 742 points.

“The mayor will be interested to note this was over 100 points ahead of any of the schools in the former borough of Ellesmere Port and Neston. The points scored per examination were also the highest in his former district.

“The overall percentage for those achieving the vital national measure or five or more GCSE passes at grades above C reached 58%.

“This was a great result, little short of the best we had ever achieved, and that in a year when, for the second time in succession, the government had insisted on increases to the marks which merited grades of C and over.

“This year we have also seen the sharpest increases in the rate at which students improve from KS2 in English and maths that we have ever achieved.

“It was the challenge set at the last inspection and it is the measure that we will be judged upon at our next.

“This has been achieved in just 18 months of tireless work on the part of all staff in all subjects.

“There remains enormous pressure on all teachers and on behalf of students, their parents, governors and myself personally I thank all staff here for their efforts.”