If the odds were against this year’s GCSE students, the cohort joining secondary school during pandemic-struck 2020, the Farnham crowd didn’t show it.

Students at Farnham Heath End, All Hallows and Weydon Schools have been celebrating successes across the board.

Top performers included Kitty Smith and Maeve Kenny from All Hallows. Kitty attained all nines and will stay at All Hallows to study maths, further maths, history and biology.

Maeve received seven nines and three eights and, as well as taking A Level biology, chemistry and maths at All Hallows, she will undertake an Extended Project Qualification on the use of AI in medicine - good preparation for a planned medical career.

There were fine results for All Hallows boys too, including twins Peter and George Lovett with a clutch of sevens and eights between them.

Peter plans to study history, politics, maths and possibly psychology at All Hallows, while George will head to Farnborough Sixth Form for economics and geography.

Victoria Milnes, Upper School head at All Hallows, said: “I am really proud of all the students; the results are a testament to their hard work.

“One in three of our grades was nine to seven and these have been achieved by students who suffered major disruption in years six and seven. Because of Covid they didn’t do SATs so these are their first proper set of exams. They have worked incredibly hard and come through.”

Stuart Maginnis, head of Farnham Heath End, echoed this, recalling year seven students forced into bubbles, isolated from others because of Covid.

“They showed real resilience and developed strong relationships between themselves and the staff which helped them through,” he said.

Megan Bloomfield was one of his students whose determination paid off. After “failing just about everything” at the start of Year 11, she pulled off a batch of sevens.

Her friend Orla Wilks recommended focusing on “what you can do well” which helped her achieve the grades to study criminology and psychology at Farnborough.

Determination also paid off for Eve Blightman Bell at Weydon where she achieved mostly sevens to nines and “passed maths for pretty much the first time in five years”.

Her advice: “Try your hardest; you get out what you put in”, something she intends to do while studying performing arts, fashion and textiles, and German at Farnborough.

Weydon is also producing a crop of lawyers. Tom Wrightman, Thomas Gwilliam and Joshua Bullock all received the grades needed to study law at Farnborough Sixth Form and maybe one day George Harris will film them on the steps of the High Court as his results mean he can join them at Farnborough to study media and photography.

The average grade across the Weydon year 11s was 6.3, with almost half the results at seven or above, something which was particularly pleasing for retiring principal Jackie Sharman.

She said: “I want to say how proud I am of this Year 11 cohort – their work ethic, resilience, and spirit have been second to none.”