Tiffany McCrea

International Admissions Officer, St Mary's School, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

Email: [email protected]

Dear Partners and Colleagues WikiVisa.Ru, 

Welcome to the start of a new academic year here at St Mary's School, Cambridge. This is very exciting year for us with many big developments within our school, including the completion and opening of our brand new boarding house and the opening and use of our new sports facilities. I have added two leaflets providing more information about these wonderful developments on our BBSConnected profile under "Resources-School Documents".

We have been celebrating some remarkable examinations results awarded to our students over the summer break. We are delighted for individual triumphs and the wider achievements of both our Year 11 and Sixth Form students. 

GCSE Results:
We continue to prove that girls can succeed at whatever they set out to do, with 23 girls achieving straight A* - A  grades (29% of the year group), and five of those girls’ results consisting of a clean sweep of A* grades. A quarter of all students achieved three or more A* - A grades, and half of the girls achieved all A* - B grades.

Over a third of all examinations taken at St Mary’s School, Cambridge were awarded an A*, and over two thirds at A* - A; increases of 8% and 6% respectively on last year – bucking the national trend that has seen a dip in grades awarded at the highest levels (A* grades nationally fell 0.1% and A* - A grades declined by 0.6%).  Our Year 11 students also saw a rise in the number of A* - B grades awarded this year, from 84% of papers being awarded these grades, to 90%; and almost all papers were awarded a grade A* - C this year (98%). In contrast, the national picture of those gaining A* - C grades saw the sharpest decline since GCSEs were launched (in 1988), dropping 2.1%, to 66.9%. Congratulations too to our Year 11 boarders, who achieved the impressive accolade of all gaining A* - A grades in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics.

GCSE Subject Highlights:

• 89% of grades achieved in Physics were A* - A, as were 85% of both Chemistry and Biology grades
• 92% of grades in Art, Textiles and Music awarded at A* - A
• Almost all students achieved grade A* - B in History (98%) and Geography (97%)
• More than four fifths of students taking languages achieved A* - B grades: Chinese (100%), Spanish (94%), German (86%), French (83%) and Latin (83%).

A Level Results:
We were equally delighted to celebrate our Sixth Form students’ results earlier this month, as the group achieved excellent results across a broad range of subjects: 50% of students’ results  were awarded at A* - A grade (twice the national average), and 75% at A* - B grade (compared to 52.9% nationally) – across 25 subjects.

A Level Subject highlights:

• 75% of Theology students achieved A* - A grades
• Two thirds of both Music and Drama students gained A* - A grades
• Over half of students taking Mathematics and 67% of those taking Further Mathematics achieved A* - A grades
• 57% of students taking Biology celebrated A* - A grades
• 100% of students taking Chinese, Russian and Italian achieved a grade A* - A.

University destination highlights

• 50% of girls gained places at Russell Group universities
• 64% achieved the grades required to attend their first choice university 

We have also spent time updating our school website and our promotional literature for the September 2017 intake and have really thought about our international families whilst doing so. Please do visit our website using this link: www.stmaryscambridge.co.uk. If you have any feedback, we would love to hear it. I have added the new promotional literature to our BBSConnected profile but you and prospective families can also download all our literature from our website here: www.stmaryscambridge.co.uk/publications-and-media-galleries.htm If you would like me to post any copies of our literature to your offices, please do not hesitate to ask me.

In case you did not read my email with regards to the deposit levels for the September 2017 intake, I am delighted to confirm again that we have significantly lowered the deposit levels required for our boarders who are applying to join our school in September 2017. We have also removed the application deadline for any scholarship applications that we receive from international applicants.

If you would like to come and visit our school and meet our key staff including our Headmistress, Ms Avery, please do get in touch with me. I will be very happy to arrange this for you. 

If you  have any questions about any aspect of our school, I really hope to hear from you.

With warmest wishes as ever, 
Tiffany