Students at Benenden School have achieved a record high set of GCSE results, with an incredible 43 per cent of all results earning the top grade of Level 9.
Headmistress Rachel Bailey congratulated the girls on their “truly wonderful” results after 67 per cent of all grades were at Levels 9-8 and 84 per cent were Levels 9-7.
These results are the strongest at Benenden since the nationwide reforms introduced numerical gradings in 2017, excluding the Covid years when exams were not sat.
Benenden Headmistress Rachel Bailey said: “These are a truly wonderful set of results and I am delighted for this year’s Upper Fifth who should be incredibly proud of their achievements.
“One of the many benefits of a boarding environment is that our teaching and pastoral teams get to know the girls incredibly well as individuals and can work with them closely to help them achieve their very best. This level of support is reflected in today’s results.”
There are some outstanding individual achievements within today’s results, including:
- 19 girls (22 per cent of the year group) achieved nothing lower than a Level 8.
- Remarkably, five students are celebrating clean sweeps of Level 9 grades (four with 11 Level 9s and one student with 10).
- Three students sat additional subjects and now have 12 GCSEs each, and all 36 of their results were at Level 7 or above.
Today’s results follow the success last week of Benenden’s Sixth Formers, when 25 per cent of all grades were at A*.
Another pleasing aspect of today’s results is the Value-Added score – the measure of how much a school has improved its students’ grades. Benenden’s GCSE Value-Added score is 0.9, meaning on average students achieve almost a grade higher than they were on track to achieve at the start of Year 10.
Ms Bailey added: “At Benenden we are committed to providing our students with A Complete Education, which fully prepares every girl for the workplace and life.
“While exam results are of course very important, they are far from being the only aspect of an education. It is especially pleasing that the girls have achieved these phenomenal GCSE results in addition to endless successes this year across music, sport, drama, debating, the Combined Cadet Force and any other discipline you can imagine.
“The vast majority of this successful cohort are remaining at Benenden for Sixth Form and we very much look forward to them continuing to thrive and becoming great role models for the younger girls.”
Benenden is renowned for offering an innovative curriculum which features numerous non-examined programmes aimed at inspiring future generations of successful, visionary women.
These include Electives, which introduce students to a range of 70 different professional and general interest topics including sign language, investments, journalism and metacognition.
Year 7 and 8 girls follow the School’s CREATE Diploma which focuses on enquiry-based skills, inspired by the World Economic Forum’s Fastest Growing Skills for 2030.
These are further embedded in the Year 9 curriculum, which has recently been enhanced with new courses in Data Science, Natural Sciences, Sustainability and Business.
In Sixth Form, all students undertake volunteering as well as the Professional Skills Programme which includes life skills, an inclusive leadership course and the enterprise challenge.