A Level Results 2017

This year’s outstanding A Level results once again reinforce Merchant Taylors’ Schools’ position at the top of the local league tables.  With a pass rate of 100% at the Girls’ School and 99.9% at the Boys’ School, over two thirds of all exams were achieved at the highest grades. Many students have gained their first choice University course to study a diverse range of subjects from Medicine, Law and Physics to Engineering, Mathematics and Classics.   All three Oxbridge offer students have had their places confirmed. Jessy Li and Leon Reason are both going to Cambridge; Jessy to study Engineering and Leon to study History. Shenghao Zhou is going to Oxford to read Mathematics.

Merchant Taylors’ is committed to providing scholarships and two students, Andrew Park and Samantha Jones, have benefited this year from fully assisted places, co-funded by the School and the Ogden Trust.  Andrew, who plays basketball for Wales, has achieved all A*/A grades and will study Medicine at Newcastle.  Samantha has opted for a different path and will be taking up her award of a three year Aerospace Engineering Apprenticeship with BAE Systems.

Today’s results are particularly notable as they are the first of the new linear A Level system introduced by the Government in 2015, designed to make exams more challenging.  With this added pressure, Merchants’ recognise the importance of strong pastoral support, an area in which it was rated as ‘Outstanding’ in the recent Independent Schools’ Inspectorate Inspections.

All this success comes in a year of numerous extra-curricular achievements in sport, music and drama.  The schools also reached two national finals with the Girls’ athletics team and the Boys’ cricket team.

Headmistress of the Girls’ School, Mrs Louise Robinson, praised the girls for their achievements, she said ‘I am delighted that the hard work and perseverance, supported by the excellent specialist academic staff, have been rewarded by fantastic results.’ Mr Deiniol Williams, in his role as Headmaster of the Boys’ School said ‘I am very proud of what our boys have achieved over the last two years – they deserve every success. Today’s results are just reward for the efforts which have been applied by students to their academic studies. Of course, none of this could have been achieved without the dedication of our subject-specialist teachers and the support of our parents.’

Jess Offlands and Sophie Orr are both scholarship girls on full assistance. Jess is going to St Andrews to study Medicine and Sophie to Royal Holloway to study History.

A full album of photographs is available here on our Facebook page