Three refugees from Ukraine have passed their A levels at Roedean even though English is not their first language.
The trio also studied online in the evenings for their Ukrainian school leavers’ qualifications and passed those too.
Roedean said: “The school is exceptionally proud of three refugee students on full bursaries who fled Ukraine when war broke out and have all achieved excellent grades, working in a second language.”
The independent school said: “Six A-level students at Roedean have bagged a remarkable 21 A*s between them as the city school celebrates 57.2 per cent of all grades coming in at A* or A and just under a quarter, at 24.4 per cent, awarded A*.
“And one student even managed to score four A*s and one A in her five subjects.
“Overall, 30 per cent of the cohort were awarded all A* and A grades and 82 per cent of the year group achieved at least one A grade.
“The 2024 cohort, Roedean’s largest Year 13 in a decade, achieved the results despite national papers reporting this week that grades would be lower across the board as part of continued efforts to restore results to pre-pandemic grading.”
Head teacher Niamh Green said: “Our Year 13s have achieved brilliant results, and I am incredibly proud of them.
“Not only have they won top grades at A level but they have also taken the leading roles in musicals, excelled on the hockey pitch, taken on leadership responsibility, sung operatic arias at the Fringe, taught English to refugees in Moldova. They have been amazing.”
The school added: “Four students will take up places at the universities of Oxford or Cambridge and one will head off to the prestigious Columbia University in New York.
“Students have won places at universities to study a vast range of subjects including cellular and molecular medicine, photography, theoretical physics, archaeology and anthropology and fashion management.
“Roedean continues to buck the trend for girls’ education, since 56 per cent of this year-group have taken Maths A level and over one third of the cohort study A levels in biology and chemistry.
“A large proportion of students will again move on to undergraduate courses in STEM subjects, with a significant number going on to read medicine and veterinary medicine at university.”
The benefits of privilege
Great news and nice they were able to offer these types of scholarships before the VAT increase. Hopefully, now the fees are going up by 20% the focus will be on keeping fees as low as possible for the parents that are struggling.
Yes – no charitable status = VAT charged, paid (and reclaimed on expenses), fewer customers and no freebies.
It also paves the way for VAT on pre-school and university fees.
I love Labour’s way of removing education from the middle classes, and preserving it only for the super-rich. Real progress.
Spot on. Labours attack on aspiration.
I can see both sides of the vat issue. On one side we subsidise the rich at the expense of funding for state schools, but on the other side we also are taxing education where some of those are not so privileged, as that may eventually have to apply to university and all tuition fees, because I can’t see how it can be legally separated.
I agree with vat for the rich, but I don’t want to see what may have to follow.