Bee McDougall was Benenden’s top performer, with a clean sweep of 11 grades at Level 9. In addition, she was awarded an A* with Distinction in her 12th GCSE, Further Maths which is graded under the old system.
She said of her results: “I thought it was an accident! I keep thinking I’m going to refresh the page and they’re going to go down.
“I still feel really nervous, like I did before I opened my results.”
Bee described her pre-results routine, saying: “I stayed up really late watching Netflix with my sister and then I got too tired so I went to sleep. I didn’t want to get up early and sit there worrying.”
Asked how she will celebrate her results, she said: “I might go back to sleep for a bit! We haven’t really decided on what to do because I didn’t want to have to change our plans if I was sad!”
Bee was most pleased with her results in the subjects she will go on to study for A Level at Benenden: English Literature, Art, Geography and Politics.
Asked how she achieved such impressive results, she said: “I really don’t know! The teachers are always really supportive and so are my parents. They never put pressure on me to do well. I said to them how would you feel if I didn’t do very well and they said they would be sad because they know I would be sad, but they wouldn’t be angry or anything like that. That’s a nice mindset.”