Ref. 71925-34GCSE RESULTS: TWO star students who went to the same schools since they were toddlers received some of the best GCSE results in the country.

Georgina Hibberd and Claire Cooke, who went to Wootton Bassett School, finished among the top five pupils in English Literature beating 373,834 other candidates.

The 16-year-olds have followed the same path through their school life, going to St Bartholomew's Primary School and Broad Hinton Playgroup before that.

Claire was also in the top five in her French exam and achieved 11 A*s in total. She said: "I was shocked, I didn't really expect to do that well.

"I was quite nervous waiting for the results and I felt a bit sick this morning. But now I just feel really pleased and happy."

Claire's family moved to Hampshire one week after her exams. She plans to do A levels in double maths, English literature, history and French.

Georgina's overall results were 5 A*s, 2As, 2Bs and 2 Cs. She said: "I am on cloud nine. I wasn't sure whether I was going to do well and found the exams quite hard."

She will be staying on at the school's sixth form to do English language and literature, German and geography.

"My aspiration is to go to Oxford to study English literature. My favourite bit of the GCSE course was the creative writing," she added.

Georgina, who lives in Hilmarton, was the reserve champion in national show jumping championship two years ago and spent a relaxing afternoon riding her horse Miss Ellie after she received her results.

Many of the other 250 pupils were also celebrating after receiving good results. Last year, 98 per cent of students received five or more GCSE passes and 68 per cent got five GCSE at grades A to C.

Zhenia Fogel, 16, of Woodshaw, was happy with his grades of 2 A*, 2 As, 3 Bs, 1 D and 2 Es.

He moved from Israel three years ago and will be staying on in the sixth form to do A levels. He said: "I was pleased with the A* in Russian because it is not my first language.

"I learned English in Israel so it wasn't too difficult in lessons here. The main difference is that maths and science is a bit easier in this country."

Laura Clark, 16, of Parson's Way, was also celebrating after earning a B, 4 As and 2 A*s including 94 per cent in maths.

She said: "I did much better than I expected. We all had to work really hard and it's not right that people keep saying exams are getting easier."

Editor