THREE Darlington Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College students were overjoyed yesterday to discover they were among the creme de la creme for A-level marks.

Laura MacKenzie's score for business studies A-level placed her in the top five in the country out of 23,353 entrants.

Richard Peacock discovered his law paper had earned him a place in the top five out of 5,007 entrants while Alan Strickland's English literature answers saw him jump into the top five out of 19,332 candidates.

All three Darlington students received the news yesterday at 11.30 when they were asked to call in for their results together.

In the autumn, Laura, who was the only student to achieve five grade-A passes, will go to Cambridge to read law while Alan, with four grade-A passes, intends to enjoy a gap year before reading politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford.

Richard, who sat some of his AS level exams last year in hospital following a serious road accident, is bound for Newcastle to study medicine after passing his four A-levels at grade A.

This year the college is celebrating its highest ever pass rate - 97pc out of 1,625 A-level entries.

A total of 36 students attained three straight As, while a further 13 achieved four A-grades.

Seventeen-year-old Ben Woods from Hurworth and 18-year-old Amy Livesey from Tunstall, near Richmond, were also celebrating passes against the odds.

Ben is still recovering in hospital after losing an arm and a leg when he was hit by a train near Croft recently. Before the accident he took four AS levels and he passed them all.

He hopes to continue studying from home in September and is determined to fulfil his ambition to go to university.

Amy too remains determined to beat her condition.

Suffering from epidermolysis bullosa - a painful skin condition which means her skin blisters with the slightest knock - the plucky teenager has attained creditable passes in three A-levels.

She has now applied to study media at Teesside University, although she will defer her place for a year while awaiting surgery.

Polam Hall successes included Rachel Turvey who gained five straight-A passes. She was also placed in the top five highest scores for general studies out of 28,043 entrants nationwide.

Other high flying students were Kay Alexander, Emily Abbey, Emma Carr, Charlotte Nichols and Rachel Turner who scored three grade-As,while twins Zena and Kizzy Kukreja attained four A-grades and two A-grades and a B grade respectively.

At Carmel Technology College, the sixth form girls fared better than the boys this year.

Claire McGovern achieved four As and one B, Danielle Miller three As and Claire Kilgour two As and two Bs.

Head teacher James O'Neill, said: "We have achieved a 97pc pass rate this year which is just fantastic for all our hardworking students."

Happy smiles were much in evidence at Barnard Castle School when students arrived to collect their results.

This year's upper sixth-formers have set new records, with 36pc of all entries achieving an A grade - 3pc up on last year's record of 33pc - and 61pc being awarded A or B grades.

Top individual performer was Joe Clark from Richmond, who scored five straight As to round off a year in which he was also capped for England schools at rugby. He has a place to read physiological sciences at Hertford College, Oxford, and has just returned from playing a leading part in the school's highly successful rugby and hockey tour to Argentina and Chile.

Close behind, with a minimum of four A grades each came Alastair McCulloch from Ingleton, who will be going to St Peter's College, Oxford, to read physics; James Keen from Tindale Crescent, who is bound for Lancaster to read management science and Matthew Selby from Melsonby, who has won a scholarship to read aeronautical engineering at Bristol.

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