CIRENCESTER Deer Park head teacher Chiquita Henson was ‘delighted’ to share in the joy with her ‘Class of 2016’ this morning with over a quarter of grades awarded A*–A.

15 pupils attained 10 or more A*–A grades each and a further 36 secured more than 5 A*–A grades each.

“I am immensely proud of our pupils’ achievements at Deer Park,” said Ms Henson.

“These results are definitely well deserved and our pupils are to be commended on their excellent attitudes to learning and revision.

“They reflect their positive mind sets and resilience, and our teachers’ commitment to ensuring our pupils are equipped with the skills, knowledge and understanding of the key concepts required to be successful independent learners across the broad range of subjects.”

76 per cent of pupils achieved five or more A*–C grades and 64 per cent got A*–C.

“These outcomes will enable the majority of our pupils to progress seamlessly onto the next phase of their learning at college or school-based sixth form or apprenticeships,” added Ms Henson.

She said she looks forward to catching up with pupils on November 10 at the school’s annual Key Stage 4 Celebration of Achievement event.

Emma Hatton achieved A*s or As in 12 of her GCSEs.

Asked how she found her exams, she said: “They were pretty relaxed because of all the mocks we’ve done, so they were something we were used to.”

Next month Emma will head to Cirencester College to study Maths, Physics, Biology and Psychology.

She said, she would miss “all my friends and the nice teachers here” but, despite her excellent results, she doesn’t yet have any idea of the career she might want to move into in the future.

To celebrate, tonight Emma is going to “chill”.

Another high achiever was Thom Keen. He said his exams went “mostly fine” but was initially worried about “one or two”.

“Revision was tough at times, especially towards the end,” he admitted. “Once you get a bit of momentum going, things get a bit easier.”

Thom will now move to Pates Sixth Form in Cheltenham and one day hopes to teach English as a foreign language in Europe.

He said tonight he would be celebrating with a “little gathering” of friends.

Meanwhile, Isabelle Crouch said she was “very pleased” with her results.

“I did better than I thought I would, especially in Spanish and Art. I stressed about those a bit,” she said.

“The teachers are really good and they encourage you to do your best.”

Isabelle is now looking forward to going to college to study History, Art, Maths and Physics, and is interested in a career in either engineering or interior design.

“There was lots of revision sessions you could go to, especially for Science.

“Science revision was really good and there was Geography revision at lunch time as well.”

Isabelle’s favourite teacher is Mrs Buckley, who teaches Geography.

“She’s just so nice and a really good teacher.”