Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Ashbourne, is once again, proud to report an outstanding set of achievements by its students in their post-16 qualifications this summer.

Our theme for this year has been making the best of the ‘opportunities’ available. Our departing Yr13 students clearly demonstrate how opportunities can be created, can be seized upon and how willpower and desire are sometimes needed to see you through a difficulty of a challenge.

Our students and their fantastic results reflect the wealth of talent that has been fostered and developed at QEGS, where each day, new opportunities always arise! This year, we know that our students and staff have experienced more challenges than we would normally encounter. However, there have also been many opportunities and a real sense of pulling together and ‘some good can come from this’.

We have also recognised the benefits and impact of our students enjoying the wealth of opportunities during their time at QEGS. Their resilience and wellbeing was challenged to a degree like never before. Once our students returned to face-to-face learning in school in March, it was never more evident how much we all needed the students’ contributions and enjoyment in school shows, music concerts, charity and fundraising events, student leadership, sports events, art exhibitions, maths challenges, Duke of Edinburgh, subject clubs and many other wonderful co-curricular activities at QEGS.

Scott Garrity, Headteacher said: “We are immensely proud of all the work and achievements of our students, especially after such a difficult and disrupted year. Our teachers have worked tirelessly to ensure students are all able to progress onto further education and study, and we look forward to seeing what they will achieve in the future. To ‘be the best you can possibly be’ takes more than just academic success. Students need to be happy, with a healthy body and mind and we hope that QEGS has helped play a part in our students pursuing happy and successful lives.”

This year, following the cancellation of exams, grades were awarded through a process of teacher assessed grades, against a national standard and approved and awarded by the exam boards. The government is not publishing performance data for any schools or colleges this year due to the varying impact of the pandemic. However, we do have some specific details which we want to acknowledge and celebrate.

Almost three quarters of our students completing A-levels and BTEC vocational courses intend to carry on their education at university with some of the most popular course choices being in Business, Economics, Maths and the Sciences. We are also delighted to have two students, Sam Glossop and Angela Le, going on to Oxford University.

In addition to our students going on to university we have also had amazing successes with students securing apprenticeship places, some which have started already. Congratulations to our students who secured places including Molly Murphy at JCB and Harriet Chamberlain at Pfizer. We are really proud of these students who faced rigorous application processes for places and it is a testament to their character and academic ability that they have been chosen from highly competitive fields.

There have been many exceptional individual results this year. These have been led by Angela Le with 4 A* grades and Nicholas Farrand, Kiera Ryan, Adam Leigh and Emily Pitts all who secured 3 A* grade plus one A. We also had excellent success in the BTEC vocational subjects. Triple Distinction Stars (D*D*D*) were awarded to Marcus Phelan (Art), Megan Elliott (Sport), Megan Lewcock (Sport), Rob Loud (CDM), Emma Yeomans (CDM), Saria Biddlecombe-Hawes (Business), Chloe Dumpleton (Business), Grace Hosking (Business) and Ewan Godfrey (Business).

Luke Walker, Head of Sixth Form said: “We are extremely proud of all the great things that our students have achieved, in and out of the classroom, and would like to thank them for being a pleasure to work with in such difficult times. We would also like to thank our post 16 teaching staff and tutors who have worked tirelessly to ensure that our students have been kept informed of the ever-changing climate in education, ensuring that a positive and calm outlook remained throughout.”

Needless to say, this same set of teachers and tutors are on hand today and this week and will be happy to help should any of our students need any advice and support. We also look forward to hearing the success stories over the coming years.

Our vision remains. We care, we question, we explore, we give and we succeed together. In the post Covid era, whilst we face many untried and untested pathways. We know that with the support from home, school and the local community, we will all help make the impossible, just a little bit more achievable.

Well done to all of our departing Yr13 for all your hard work throughout your courses, it has been a privilege to have known you all and we wish you all the best for the future.

Scott Garrity
Headteacher