Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER, MARK BLUNDEN & SIMON WROE Published: 24 August 2007
Central Foundation pupils Hing-Bond Chong, Kervan Gordon, Yacine Sekoum and William Huang
‘It was worth all the sacrifices,’ insist delighted GCSE pupils
Results day joy as students’ success stories push borough’s standards even higher
WHETHER it was giving up “boys and partying” or getting a solid eight hours’ sleep a night – Islington’s teenagers yesterday (Thursday) divulged the secrets of their GCSE success.
Their usually cool exteriors cracked with beaming smiles, hugs for teachers and some impromptu dancing as they collected their exam results.
A number put their social lives on hold to embark on a tough revision regime – and it appears their efforts paid off as they helped the borough improve its five A*-C grade benchmark by 3 per cent.
Yacine Sekoum, from Archway, was celebrating his grades at Central Foundation school in Finsbury. He said: “It was all down to our teachers, who were amazing. The assemblies were quite uplifting.”
His friend, Kervan Gordon, who scored a clutch of top-grade GCSEs, said: “My secret was getting a good night’s sleep. I made sure I didn’t overdo it, though, and took plenty of breaks.”
One 16-year-old at Islington Green School said: “I made sure I was revising instead of concentrating on boys and partying.”
At St Aloysius, 62 per cent of pupils got A to C grades, the best achieved by the Catholic college in Hornsey Lane, Archway.
Highbury Fields headteacher Bernard Williams said that although the final tally had not been calculated, results were up roughly 1 per cent on last year.