STAFF and students at schools across West Dorset are celebrating an 'excellent' set of GCSE exam results.

A total of 93 per cent of students at the Sir John Colfox School gained five A*-G passes at GCSE, while 55 per cent achieved 5 A*-C.

At Beaminster a total of 57 per cent of students gained five or more GCSE grades between A*-C and 91 per cent gained five or more grades between A*-G.

In a first for the school, a year seven student, Alexia Recurt was also celebrating achieving an A* in French.

And Woodroffe School at Lyme Regis notched up a record set of results this year, with almost 70 per cent of pupils gaining A* to C grades and 97 per cent of pupils gained A*-G passes.

Kay Taylor, headteacher of the Sir John Colfox School, said the results were very good.

She said: "This was a very pleasing set of results for these students.

"They did better than we expected and there were some outstanding personal achievements.

"Students have made good progress since their key stage three results and I am very pleased with our overall value added score".

She said overall 14 per cent of the grades were A*s or As and 31 per cent were A* to B although there are still a few grades which have not been finalised.

Students who did particularly well included: Myfanwy Lloyd and Eleanor Griffies-Weld with 9 A*s and As; Alison Batchelor, Jason Bevis and Katy Morris with 8 A*s and As; Rebecca Richards and Katherine Barrett with 7 A*s and As and Eleanor Green, Robert Hanson and Karen Siggs with 6 A*s and As.

Year nine student Katherine Malyon, 14, achieved an A grade in GCSE religious education.

Mrs Taylor said there were a few results still to be finalised as it appeared not all students' coursework has been included in some of the results, particularly the separate science physics.

She added: "These are students who on the whole should be achieving A*s to B grades and therefore we expect our results to improve.

"The students and staff have worked very hard to achieve these results", said Mrs Taylor. Almost all students have performed better than expected."

Beaminster headteacher Mike Best said they were pleased with the results.

He added: "These results are well-deserved. I am particularly pleased to see the number of students achieving high grades. All our students should be congratulated upon their achievements which reflect their consistent effort over recent years. Well done!"

Students who did particularly well were Emma Price with 9 A*s and As; Nicholas Bunford with 8 A*s and As; Jacob Hansen Hicks, Emily Varndell and Lucy Ferris all with 7 A*s and As and Scott Noyes with 6 A*s and As.

Woodroffe Principal Dr Richard Steward said: "I am delighted to see that the trend in results continues its upward momentum and it is a pleasure to see so many excellent individual performances.

"As ever, students worked incredibly hard and one can only admire the commitment and determination of those who managed to achieve high grades across such a broad range of subjects."

Outstanding individual performances came from Emily Penn, who scooped eight A*s and one A. Faye Cable got four A*s and six As while Theodora Wilmot took home one A* and 8 A grades. The boys gave the girls a run for their money with Max Borgeat taking one A , six As and two Bs, Nathan Gosling with two A*s, six As and one C. Edward Stratford scooped seven As, one B and a C, while Christopher Thurgood-Perry bagged seven As and two Cs.