STUDENTS’ achievements have been celebrated at an annual prize presentation which recognised both their performance and that of their former headmaster.

This year’s sixth-form leavers from Ripon Grammar School returned for speech day where their success as the highest performing A-level students in Yorkshire and the North-East was marked.

Most of the year group is now at university studying subjects from archaeology to zoology, at centres from Exeter to Edinburgh, with four at Cambridge and one at Oxford.

Among them are eight medics, one dentist, five vets, eight engineers and 11 historians, with others reading subjects as diverse as Chinese and criminology, performing arts and real estate.

They were joined by students who excelled in their GCSEs in the summer and an audience of civic dignitaries, family members and staff.

New headmaster Jonathan Webb paid tribute to the students and staff team and also to Martin Pearman, who retired this year after 13 years leading the school.

Mr Pearman was also recognised by the chair of the governors, Dr Peter Mason, who praised his “inexorable ambition."