A decade after telling his dad that his dream was to be a surgeon, gym-loving Josh Darby is one step closer to his medical dreams after a stellar set of GCSE results.
The 16-year-old, a pupil at Walbottle Academy, picked up a clutch of top grades. Opening his results on camera, he revealed a slew of 8s and 9s.
Walbottle Academy became part of the Northern Education Trust multi-academy trust in September 2020. It had previously been placed in special measures after an "inadequate" Ofsted inspection. Lemington lad Josh was just one of the star pupils to mark the first GCSE results since then - thanks to Covid-19 - with the school's best ever results.
He told ChronicleLive : "I'm just delighted. It's a bit overwhelming. I'll be staying on and doing subjects including maths, chemistry and biology, and hopefully going down the medicine route."
Mum and dad Julie and Ian were overcome by emotion after Josh's success. Ian said: "The boy's done well, hasn't he? It's all credit to him, he's been so incredibly dedicated. When he was little, he said 'dad, I'm going to be a surgeon'. He was just seven."
Grace Waugh, Jessica Jones and Georgia Bell were also delighted with their performance. Grace's mix of 7s and 8s will stand her in good stead for sixth form, while Jessica was chuffed with a range of 6s and 7s and will be taking staying on at Walbottle to study health and social care, with a view to becoming a midwife. Georgia was stunned with a top grade 9 in English. All three girls said they were "incredibly relieved" about maths.
Other star performers at the school on the western edge of Newcastle included Cameron Noble - who also swept the board with 8s and 9s - as did Matthew May, who massively outperformed his predicted grades, which had been mostly 6s.
And Ayuniy Salum, from Elswick, dissolved into tears of joy as she opened her results with mum Waheeda. Elswick-based Ayuniy wants to be a children's nurse and she told ChronicleLive: "I'm incredibly pleased. I wouldn't have expected that I'd do as well as I did!
"I'm pleased with everything. The teachers here have also just been so supportive to me - helping with studying after school, coming in early in the morning - I'm just so relieved."
And Ericka Smith echoed this, thanking teachers for helping her bounce back from mental health difficulties. After pulling a grade 7 - equivalent to what used to be an A - out of the bag in English language, along with passes in every other subject, she's now looking to pursue her passion for art at sixth form. She said: "School was a struggle for me at times, because of mental health," she said. "but the school helped me come back slowly and really supported me to get my grades."
School principal Martin Wood said the results were a testament to the hard work undertaken since Walbottle became part of the NET trust in 2020. In the school's last GCSE results based on actual exams, just one in five pupils picked up passes in maths and English. That figure is now up to 53%.
Mr Wood said: "It's amazing that we've got these results after everything that's been going on. You've had the Covid-recovery stuff, lots of work on wellbeing, and picking up from where this school has been.
"To add an extra grade across eight subjects for every single child at a school which was one of the worst in the North East is remarkable. There's been a huge amount of change here and that's what the school needed. We are very outcomes focussed and we've thrown the world at these kids."
Mr Wood and executive principal Nikki Gibb both spoke about how the school were pleased to change the narrative around it. The pair said the success was down to "focussing on every one of these 253 kids individually".
Mr Wood added: "I stood in front of these kids before every exam and told them they would be getting the best results this school has ever had. I told them that every time and it's happened."
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