GCSE results mean more good news for a Keynsham school

Students and staff at a Keynsham school are celebrating their best ever GCSE results just months after it was saved from closure.

Broadlands School in St Francis Road was threatened with closure in a review of education in Bath and North East Somerset – with plans to merge it with Wellsway School.

But last month the council decided Broadlands would remain open and there would still be two secondary schools in Keynsham..

And now the Year 11 pupils have triumphed with the school's best set of results – with head teacher Justine Hocking putting it down to "determination in the face of adversity".

A record 68 per cent of pupils achieved at least five A*-C grades while 47% 5 A*-C GCSEs including both English and Mathematics. 

Ms Hocking said: “These results are a further improvement on last year which means that Year 11 2010 have taken the crown of our best ever results to date!  As a specialist science and engineering school we are particularly pleased that 87% of students achieved the equivalent of at least 2 A*-C GCSE grades in Science.  

"It is the icing on the cake," said Ms Hocking. "Personally, today will be the first day I can walk out of here without the cloud hanging over me because I started here just before they started talking about closure."

She said staff and governors had been determined to make sure that the students did not suffer in all the uncertainty.

"And the children seemed to want to champion Broadlands in their own way, by doing as well as they could," she added.

Wellsway School has yet to reveal its results.