Friday 25 January 2013 The league tables published on 24 January show GSAL maintaining its position among the region’s leading schools and topping the table in Leeds for students’ performance in the 2012 GCSE and A level examinations. Introduced in 2010, the English Baccalaureate is a measure which packages together six key subjects at GCSE – English, mathematics, history or geography, two sciences and a language. 80% of GSAL pupils achieved six passes at Grades A* to C in these subjects. Only two schools in North Yorkshire, York and Bradford, the local authority areas in addition to Leeds from which GSAL mainly draws its pupils, marginally outperformed GSAL in the baccalaureate. GSAL is the top performing independent school in this area for GCSE results across all subjects, and second in the whole Yorkshire and Humberside region. 99% of GSAL students achieved at least five good GCSEs including Maths and English, compared with benchmarks of 59.4% nationally and 55% in Leeds schools. GSAL’s A level cohort came top of the chart in Leeds with a 99.9% pass rate at grades A to E and an average point score per A level examination entry of 248.6. GSAL is also the city’s top school on the basis of a new measure introduced this year – 26% of pupils achieved three A levels at AAB in ‘facilitating subjects’, which are the academically rigorous subjects preferred by leading universities. GSAL Principal Mike Gibbons said: “These measures taken together demonstrate the academic strength of our provision at GSAL. We are immensely proud of our students’ success, both in the core subjects and in the broader curriculum on offer at GSAL which allows them a wide choice to suit their interests and aptitudes.” The full tables, sortable by school and local authority, are available online at Department for Education, The Telegraph and Yorkshire Post Photo: In 2012 GCSE candidates at GSAL picked up an amazing 823 A* grades between them General Senior School Sixth Form News
