Year 13 students at BGS have set new records in every measure of achievement in the IB with a stunning set of results. They can now celebrate the end of months of uncertainty with achievements that vindicate all the hard work they have put in since September 2019 through two academic years which have been disrupted by the pandemic.

5 students achieved the perfect score of 45 points. 50 of our year 13 cohort of 185 students achieved 40 points or higher - a staggering success! Just shy of 40% of students gained 38 points or more, a typical Oxford University offer. 62% of all grades were a 6 or a 7 and 92% were a 5 or higher. The whole cohort achieved an average of 5.8 points per subject (world average = 5.1 in 2020), an average of 36.0 total points per student (world average = 31.3 in 2020) and the best progress (value-added) ever. It is remarkable that the average achievement in UCAS points (215 points) of our students is equivalent to 3 A* and 1 A at A level.

Although students were not able to demonstrate their performance in final examinations due to the pandemic, the IB marked their IAs (coursework) this year in place of examinations. The IB then combined this marking with school predicted grades and used grade allocations for each subject based on previous cohorts to maintain parity with pre-pandemic school results and to maintain parity with students taking examinations in other countries. These results have involved greater scrutiny and moderation than A level results are receiving.

Charlotte Allen, Samuel Gee, Katherine Henderson, Samantha Hayes-Holgate and Danny Phan all achieved the maximum Diploma score of 45 points. (Only 339 candidates achieved this across the world in 2020). 6 students, Yingfei Chen, Bani Kaur Dhoofer, Natascha Loison, Luca Varela, Caitlin Yemm and Kylie Li, scored an incredible 44 points each. 9 students achieved a perfect set of 7s across their six subjects.

Receiving results so early in the summer is a distinct advantage, perhaps more so than ever in these extraordinary times. We celebrate our four students who secured places at Oxford and three at Cambridge joining a list of over 100 students with offers at Russell Group universities. BGS students have places at 23 of the 24 Russell Group institutions - only Queen’s University Belfast will be without a Bexley Grammar School student.  At the time of writing, less than 24 hours after students received their results, 83% of students have been automatically accepted into their first choices, 5 weeks before A level results are published! A number of our students have secured places on prestigious apprenticeships at institutions such as Commerzbank or BDO, for which there is often considerably more competition than for many university places.

I am delighted for, and grateful to, our students, their teachers, their families, indeed the whole BGS community which celebrates these remarkable outcomes from the world-class education our students have enjoyed. As we reflect on the pandemic, it is arguably more important than ever before for our young men and women to flourish in the IB with its outward-looking, international curriculum. The summer is now theirs to enjoy, secure in the knowledge that they will be studying at (and really at, as opposed to remotely in communication with) some of the most prestigious institutions in the world this autumn.

Steve Elphick

Headteacher