There was much to celebrate when last summer’s GCSE |students returned to Mullion School to be recognised for their achievements.

Ex-students, parents, staff and |governors gathered for the awarding of their official certificates and also more than 40 individual trophies, subject and headteacher |commendations.

Headteacher Mike Sandford paid a tribute to the students on their results, which were the equal second best ever to be recorded by Mullion School. A total of 63 per cent of the pupils achieved five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths.

Notably, however, this set of students had also achieved a record breaking set of results in terms of the progress that they had made from arriving at the school to leaving. The English department was placed in the top 21st percentile, the maths |department in the top 15th percentile, the science department in the top 23rd percentile, the languages |department in the top 24th percentile and the humanities department in the top 7th percentile nationally.

Guest speaker for the evening was former member of staff Amanda Hipkiss, who worked at Mullion School for 25 years and in that time built up a tremendous reputation for special educational needs work at a local, regional and national level.

She was nominated in this year’s National Teacher Awards and despite the fact that there were a record |number of entries – 24,500 – she went on to win the Ted Wragg Lifetime Award for the whole of the South West Region, one of only seven regions in the whole of the UK.

In her speech, Mrs Hipkiss encouraged the students to make the most of opportunities, to be optimistic and to never give up when they encountered problems.

The evening marked the final departure of the school’s “Flight 32.” Each cohort of pupils is given a “Flight” number, as the school |symbol is the arctic tern – the bird with the longest migratory pattern of all creatures, symbolising the fact that Mullion pupils will travel all around the world.

Falmouth Packet:

Falmouth Packet:

Falmouth Packet: