LOCAL headteachers have praised the strength of character of their students who have faced the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic.

Head of Forest High School in Cinderford, Mr John Whitehead said students had achieved “excellent GCSE results in the most challenging of circumstances.”

He added: ”We are so proud of the year group who are receiving their GCSEs this year, they have shown incredible strength of character and resilience. No year group has ever been asked to complete so many assessments in such challenging conditions.”

Among the students at Forest High who gained outstanding results were George Bendall, Maisie Bullock, Sasha Devine, Finley Grindle, Jemma Harrison, Edward Mormonea, Callum Phillips, Alex Powell, Ben Ricketts, Charlie Taylor, Grace Treharne, Liam Wilkins and Thom Williams.”

Steve Brady, the head at Dene Magna in Mitcheldean said: “In spite of the constant spectre of COVID, the disruption of some of them having to isolate and access lessons via Google Meet, our Year 11 students have once again achieved a superb set of results.

“We are particularly proud of these results as we know how rigorous our approach was so that we could enable these students to talk about their results for years to come, safe in the knowledge that their teachers were thorough and acted with great professionalism in awarding grades.

“We cannot underestimate how hard this journey has been for these students.

“This year, more than ever, the work of our pastoral team has been drawn upon and we are thrilled to be able to share these successes with our community”.

Deputy Headteacher Fred Mitchell said “As well as the hard work the students have put in, everyone at Dene Magna has to pay tribute to the teachers who spent countless hours marking and moderating all the samples of work we had on top of their normal teaching and planning”.

A number of students achieved average grades over an eight, including Annabel Motson, Jazmine Saunders, Ruby Tradgett, Sarah Tyler, Olivia Pitcher-Leigh, Isabel Suehr, Charlotte Cotterell and Oliver Heal.

Mr Brady also paid tribute to Tom Hinchey, Dom Greer, Alisha Harman, Ellie Turner and Jaymie Humphries who have made the most progress since joining the school five years ago.

Head of the Dean Academy in Lydney, Richard Brand, said: “Congratulations to the class of 2021 who remained completely focused on achieving their goals in difficult circumstances.

“They’ve all displayed enormous resilience. We were delighted to see our students walking away with strong results today which are a fair reflection of how hard they had worked.

“This will hopefully enable them to succeed in their next steps.”