BEAMING students across the county breathed a sigh of relief after conquering a controversial shake-up in the A-Level system.

Oxfordshire teenagers triumphed yesterday despite being the first to tackle major changes, designed to make courses ‘more rigorous’.

Provisional results suggested the county’s schools had coped well under new pressures, with average grades in line with last year’s.

Several schools even recorded some of their best-ever results, including Wallingford School, but headteacher Wyll Willis put that down to hard work rather than system changes.

He said: “This is the consequence of extremely hard work, given the scale of curriculum reforms with which teachers and students have had to contend.”

This was the first set of results since the Government revised the A-Level system to make it ‘linear’, though several subjects will not see the changes until next year.

The reform disentangled AS-Levels from A-Levels so Year 12 exams no longer count towards the final grade, got rid of modules and cut other assessment such as coursework and reviewed course content.

Oxfordshire county councillor and education expert Professor John Howson said changes sparked concern for both candidates and educators.

He said: “The first area of concern was if it was effective doing away with ‘way stations’ and concentrating all on the final year.

“It’s a tribute to students, staff and parents that they have kept up very well with the changes and managed to cope with them.

“[As a teacher] the main thing you can do is make sure you have covered the syllabus and give confidence not to panic when they get in the exam; to take a deep breath, plan answers and not fall through the crucial elephant traps.”

Prof Howson noted it might take a while to put things into context, for example if more parents this year invested in extra tuition to compensate for conditions.

Emma-Kate Henry, principal of d’Overbroeck’s, noted the North Oxford independent school had seen ‘tremendous achievements’ this year.

She said: “This was a particularly challenging year for students with the move to linear and new content and forms of assessment, but their results are our best ever.”

The Cherwell School in Summertown saw a record number of pupils achieve grade B or above.

Nigel Sellars, head of Gosford Hill School near Kidlington, said ‘hard work and determination’ was to thank for the fact that a whopping 67 per cent of its students gained an A* grade in maths.

Sarah Brinkley, head of John Mason School in Abingdon, said her students had demonstrated ‘resilience and endeavour’. She added: “With the introduction of new specifications and continually changing educational landscape, it is clear there is no substitute for this; you get out what you put in.”

But other schools, such as Cheney School in Headington, had a more challenging year amid the shake-up.