Thousands of students across Surrey collected their GCSE grades on Thursday
Ruby, Melissa, Jhulya, Ollie and Ben celebrating their results at Blenheim High School, Epsom. (Image: Blenheim High School)
Epsom and Ewell was Surrey’s best performing area when it came to GCSE, and among the top ten nationwide.
On Thursday (August 20) thousands of teenagers across the county collected their exam results, marking the end of a five year senior school journey and a key step forward in choosing their future path.
This year the proportion of exams getting the top grades has risen for the second time in a row, and remains higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 22.0% of grades were awarded grade 7/A or above, up slightly from 21.9% in 2025 and higher than the 20.8% in 2019.
However, while 67.3% of exams were graded a 4/C or above is down slightly from 67.4% last year.
GCSEs shifted from a letter to a number grading system back in 2017, starting with English and Maths. By 2020 all subjects had shifted to this system.
The grades are ranked from 1, the lowest, to 9, the highest. They don’t directly correspond to the letter grades, but simply put a 9 is a A*, a 7 is an A and an 8 sits somewhere in the middle. A 4 can be translated as a C.
The best performing area of the county worked out by looking at the proportion of GCSE entries awarded 7 or above. At Epsom and Ewell this was 37.8% of grades. This is still quite a way off top placed Cambridge at 53.5%.
To put that number in perspective the average proportion of grades awarded 7 and up in the South East was 24.6%. You can take a look at how all the counties did below
One of the schools in Epsom that was celebrating on Thursday was Blenheim High School which had a record breaking year. Students there achieved over 10% higher than the national pass rate with 78% of grades awarded are 9-4, 25% over 7.
Tony Bodell, Headteacher at Blenheim High School says “This year’s GCSE results are exceptional and they stand as a powerful testament to the dedication and hard work of our students and staff.”
While Epsom and Ewell was the highest scoring area of Surrey, the areas surrounding Surrey did incredibly well with Richmond Upon Thames, Sutton and Kingston upon Thames coming second, third and fourth respectively.
Three more Surrey boroughs appeared in the top 20. Waverley (36.6%) came in 11th, Mole Valley (36.4%) 12th and Guildford (35.5%) just behind in 16th.
The rest of the Surrey areas can be found slightly down the table, with Elmbridge (31.6%) in 29th, Runnymede (28.7%) in 47th, Woking (26.6%) in 62nd, Surrey Heath (26.0%) 68th, Spelthorne (24.5%) 85th, Reigate and Banstead (24.0%) 87th, and Tandridge (22.7%) in 104th.