SEVEN friends at Brighton Hill Community School exemplified the success of this year's GCSEs.

Melissa Akers, Victoria Edwards, Rebecca Kingsbury, Kim Ruffell, Rachael Osgood, Peter Tompsett and Victoria Wheeler met up at the school on Thursday to share their results and discovered they had all earned high grade passes.

Peter, 16, from Brighton Hill, said: "My mum pre-empted my success and bought me a bottle of Champagne. I was expecting to have to use it to drown my sorrows but now we can have the celebrations she hoped for."

Peter achieved eight As, two Bs, two Cs, and an A* in chemistry.

Rachael, who was awarded eight Cs, two A's, a B and a D, said: "I'm so relieve, I needed five Cs to get on the health and social care course at QMC so that I can achieve my dream of becoming a social worker. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me and it's the best day of my life. I just can't believe that we have all done so well."

The group all went out for a meal on Sunday night to celebrate.

Also celebrating at Brighton Hill was Richard Barnwell, of Beech Tree Close, Oakley, who achieved nine grade A*s and two grade As.

Bill Blake, deputy head at the school said: "The students have done very well - more than 60 per cent of GCSE and GNVQ exams entered have resulted in higher grade passes."

At Cranbourne School, the boys blitzed national averages to prove they were not so far behind girls after all, and even excelled beyond them in some subjects. They beat the girls in geography, maths and science, and performed leaps and bounds above the national average for their sex in these subjects.

Girls at the school were not doing too badly either. Head girl Merika Vine, 16, from South Ham, achieved six A*s, three As and three Bs.

"She was fantastic as head girl, always helping out at the school and performing in drama and dance productions - a real all-rounder - she's expecting the results of a shoot for a modelling agency soon as well," said deputy head Mrs Adams.

Merika, who's going on to study performing arts at QMC, said: "I'm ecstatic, I just can't believe it."

At The Vyne Community School they celebrated their best results ever, after making a massive leap from last year's figure of 39 per cent of pupils achieving five or more high-grade passes to 48 per cent.

"It's wonderfully satisfying to have this public recognition of the school's ongoing achievement," said headteacher Judith Edge.

The celebrations were mirrored at The Hurst Community School in Baughurst as more than 64 per cent of its GCSEs were grade A to C.

The figure equalled last year's performance, while the proportion of top grades was up.

Headteacher Malcolm Christian said: "We are all delighted. Everyone has achieved their potential and nobody should be disappointed."

He added that there was no difference in performance between girls and boys.