New College Celebrates GCSE Exam Success

New College Swindon is best known for outstanding A Level results but today 1049 learners will be collecting their GCSE results.

GCSE qualifications at New College are increasingly popular with the number of GCSE entries for 2014 increasing by 14% on last year’s total and by 40% in the last two years.

New College offers a wide range of GCSE subjects to all of its students; whether they are A Level or BTEC students wanting to try new subjects or improve their Maths or English grades, adult evening class students taking extra qualifications for interest or to improve their job prospects or learners on the dedicated GCSE programme itself.

69% of entries were in the core Maths and English subjects, which are vital to CVs, University prospects and job success. Many learners are retaking these subjects to improve their grades.  It is still a real struggle for many but 289 more now have the A* to C grade in Maths and 184 in English. New College hopes to help more people achieve as they continue their study programmes there.

Students earned a 100% pass rate in 24 out of 30 subjects including Ancient History, Photography, Biology, Chemistry, French, Geography, Italian, Media Studies, Music, Physics, Psychology, Science, Sociology and Spanish.

420 of the entries today were for our 19+ adult students studying GCSE subjects during evening classes.  All adult learners passed GCSE English and 18 other courses. The overall pass rate across all subjects was 99.3%, an increase from last year.

Subjects with more than 70% of learners achieving A* - C grades include Health and Social Care, Japanese, Italian, Music, French, Sociology, Statistics, Spanish, Astronomy, Photography and Film Studies.  

56% of the New College learners who retook Sciences - Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Science achieved the higher grades.

New College Principal Graham Taylor commented:  “Today’s results are a great achievement for the learners and for the College. The learners’ success reflects their hard work and enthusiasm and is a tribute to the fantastic teaching and support provided by all staff here.

New College has a flexible approach to GCSEs; learners can study in the daytime, attend evening classes to fit round their work and family commitments or study through open/ distance learning. We offer a climbing frame of qualifications in Maths and English leading up to GCSE and then on to A-level and Further Maths to help learners achieve their objectives.

The government are funding free Maths and English GCSE qualifications for adults who do not already have them. We also run a wide range of language courses including French, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese and Spanish with 100% achievements.  We want to help our students succeed, not just in exams, but in achieving their personal goals.

We congratulate all of our students who received GCSE results today and wish them all the very best for the future.”