A Polish girl who arrived with 'almost no English' two years ago is amongst those celebrating an Aspley school's 'best ever' GCSE results.
More than two thirds got above a grade four in English and Maths, equivalent to an old grade C, and 38 percent got a strong pass at grade five or above at Nottingham Girls' Academy .
The school, which had more than 700 pupils on the roll last year, is also celebrating 44 percent of its pupils getting a grade four in English, Maths, Science, a Humanity and Modern Foreign Language.
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
Twenty-two percent got a strong pass in these subjects.
One of the girls the school wanted to highlight was Polish immigrant Kinga Cwiek, who arrived in the UK two years ago with "almost no English" according to the school, but still managed "exceptional" results. She got 3x7, 1xA*, 1xA, 1x6, 2x5 and 1xPass.
The 16-year-old told Nottinghamshire Live: "“My English has come along a lot. I came to school and all I could say was ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?’. People looked at me weirdly.
“It was quite scary, and my mum was very anxious that I was not going to make friends. But on the first day I found a group that helped me. The first months were hard as I couldn’t understand anything and I had to get used to the new system and teachers.
“I first noticed it was getting better in media lessons where I had to listen to films and understand what it was about.
“I was so happy with my results, I feel like I have achieved a lot and I didn’t think I could.”
She added that her results here were better than back in Poland and she would be going on to study film and TV production at Nottingham College so she can be a film producer or director in the future.
Wendy Hill, Assistant Principal of the school said: “This is an amazing group of girls, who have helped each other throughout their 5 years of secondary school.
"I have never known a group of girls support each other so well, both emotionally and academically. We are so proud of them all!”
