Elmbridge A level results 2026, school by school

Seven Elmbridge sixth forms published their own A level figures on results day, and three of them called 2026 their strongest year on record. Reed’s School in Cobham reported 60% of all grades at A* or A and Notre Dame in Cobham reported 55%, while Claremont Fan Court in Esher said 51% of its pupils achieved grades at A to A*. At Esher Sixth Form College in Thames Ditton, 98.1% of A level grades were passes and 58.8% were at A* to B. (Esher Sixth Form College)

Every figure below comes from the school’s own announcement. We have not taken a single number from another newspaper, and where a school’s measure cannot fairly be set against a national one, we say so rather than quietly implying a ranking.

What each school published

Esher Sixth Form College, Thames Ditton. A 98.1% overall pass rate at A level including EPQs, which the college puts at 0.5 percentage points above the JCQ national benchmark, and 58.8% of grades at A* to B, 2.3 points above it. 662 students got their first choice university place and 84% got their first or insurance choice. A record 12 students are going to Oxford or Cambridge, five to Cambridge for design, engineering, history, law and medicine, seven to Oxford for computer science, English, law, medicine and music. Principal Dan Hards said he was “incredibly proud of our students”. Vocational results and the full breakdown follow later, the college says in October. (Esher Sixth Form College)

Hinchley Wood School. The headline the school led with was a broken record: 73% of grades at A* to B, a new school best, with 35% at A* to A, 12% at A*, 91% at A* to C and 99% at A* to E. At the time of writing, 85 students had secured a first choice place and 13 an insurance place, and three are heading to Oxbridge for history, biology and economics. (Hinchley Wood School)

Heathside School, Weybridge. A 100% pass rate at A* to E, with 25.4% of grades at A* to A, 56.2% at A* to B and 83.2% at A* to C. Out of a cohort of 60 students, eight achieved all A or A* grades. Headteacher Gareth Lewis said the results were “reflective of their hard work over the last two years”. Leavers are going on to Bath, Birmingham, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter and Glasgow among others. (Heathside School)

Cobham Free School. Over 31% of grades at A or A* and 83% at A to C, which the school calls a third consecutive year of improvement. This year has a particular meaning at CFS: the children who joined the school’s opening Reception class in 2012 have now finished their all-through journey, and one of that founding group has a place at Oxford. Executive head Michaela Khatib said it had been “a privilege to see these students, alongside their peers, grow into confident, capable young adults”. (Cobham Free School press release, 13 August 2026, linked from the school’s press releases page)

Reed’s School, Cobham (independent). 60% of all grades at A* or A, almost a quarter at A*, and 88% at A* to B, which headmaster Mark Hoskins called “the strongest A level results in Reed’s history”. Places include PPE and music at Oxford, philosophy and biology at Cambridge, maths and computer science at Imperial, engineering at Durham, economics at Bath and law at Exeter, along with New York University, Penn State and Kansas State and apprenticeships at London Built Environment and Bank of America. (Reed’s School)

Notre Dame School, Cobham (independent). 55% of grades at A* to A and 82% at A* to B, with one in ten pupils achieving a full set of A*s. Oxbridge applicants made up 10% of the cohort and all of them received offers. Headmistress Anna King said what moved her was “watching them grow into thoughtful, self-assured young women”. (Notre Dame School)

Claremont Fan Court School, Esher (independent). 51% of pupils achieved A to A* grades, which the school describes as its strongest ever set of A level results. (Claremont Fan Court School)

Two more borough sixth forms are missing from that list because they had published nothing to report: neither St George’s College in Weybridge nor Three Rivers Academy in Hersham had a 2026 headline percentage on the public pages of its website when this was written. If either publishes one, we will add it.

The benchmarks, and which comparisons are fair

Ofqual published its official figures the same morning. Nationally, 835,950 A level results went to 320,505 students at 2,835 schools and colleges, and 28.3% of results were at A or above, up from 28.2% last year. The South East is the second strongest region in England, behind London.

Source: Ofqual, Qualification results in England: summer 2026, tables 8 and 9.

Two things follow from that table, and neither usually makes it into a results-day round-up.

The first is that an Elmbridge independent school should be read against 48.6%, not against 28.3%. Reed’s at 60% of grades and Notre Dame at 55% are clearly ahead of the independent sector as a whole. Setting either against the all-England figure of 28.3% flatters them, and setting a comprehensive against them is meaningless. Claremont’s 51% cannot be put on the same line at all, because it counts pupils who achieved A to A* grades rather than the share of grades awarded, and those two measures do not answer the same question.

The second is that school percentages and Ofqual percentages are not counting the same thing. Ofqual reports the share of results at A and above and at C and above, for A levels only. Schools publish A*-B, A*-C or A*-E, and some fold in vocational equivalents. So a school’s A*-C sits roughly alongside Ofqual’s C and above, its A*-E has no regional counterpart at all, and A*-B has no national equivalent whatsoever, which is why Hinchley Wood’s 73% is meaningful only against Hinchley Wood’s own previous years. That is exactly how the school used it, and it is a genuine record.

One correction worth making, because it will otherwise circulate all week: Hinchley Wood’s announcement compared its results with a national A* to C figure of 79.1% reported by the BBC. Ofqual’s own published table puts England’s C and above at 78.1%. The school’s lead over the national figure is real either way, and slightly larger than it claimed.

The borough figure you will see quoted, and why we are not quoting it

Since 7 August, Ofqual has published A level outcomes by local authority district through an interactive map. Expect to see an Elmbridge or Surrey ranking pulled off it this week.

Read those rankings carefully. Grades are assigned to an area by the postcode of the exam centre recorded in the National Centre Number register, not by where the student lives, and Ofqual says the accuracy of the map depends on the accuracy of those records. In a borough like this one, where several large independent schools sit alongside a handful of state sixth forms, that measures the results taken in Elmbridge rather than the achievement of Elmbridge’s children, plenty of whom sit their exams in Kingston, Guildford, Woking and Richmond.

What it means for you

If a grade looks wrong, the clock is already running. A review of marking is requested through your school or college exams officer, not directly from the exam board, and the student has to give written consent first, because a grade can go down as well as up. The summer 2026 deadlines are:

• Priority review of marking: 20 August 2026. For A levels, T Levels and level 3 vocational qualifications where a university place depends on the outcome. Boards must complete it within 15 calendar days.
• Standard review of marking: 24 September 2026, completed within 20 calendar days.
• Clerical re-check: 24 September 2026, completed within 10 calendar days. This checks that marks were added up and recorded correctly rather than re-marking the paper, and it is the cheaper first move if a total looks odd.

(JCQ post-results services)

GCSE results follow on Thursday 20 August, the same day as the priority remark deadline, so any household with children in both year groups has one week to handle both.

If you are travelling this fortnight for a clearing interview, an open day or an accommodation viewing, our guide to trains from Elmbridge to London has journey times and fares from all ten stations in the borough, including which two take contactless. For anyone staying put and celebrating, things to do in Elmbridge covers what is open locally.

We will publish the borough’s GCSE figures on 20 August on the same basis: schools’ own announcements, Ofqual’s own tables, and no numbers borrowed from anyone else’s reporting.