Pupils across the county are celebrating top GCSE results today, writes Madeleine Pennell.

Girls have again gained more of the top grades than boys, as they did in A-level results, which came out last week.

One star pupil bucking the national trend is 14-year-old Ericson Lee, who scooped four A*s, four As and two B grades.

Ericson, of Iffley Road, Oxford, attends St Augustine of Canterbury Upper School. Last week, his sister, Rosemary Lee, 16, who is at the same school, learned she had gained an A grade at A-level Chinese. She has spent the summer doing research with top Oxford don prof Susan Greenfield.

Ericson started at Cardinal Newman Middle School, Oxford, three years ago, but found the work easy and St Augustine's let him move up two academic years. Headteacher Elisabeth Gilpin said: "Ericson is a great character. They are both smashing, really positive and enthusiastic. We knew they were both bright, but we never quite knew whether it was too much to advance Ericson two years."

Fellow St Augustine's pupils Jack O'Sullivan, 16, of Westbury Gardens, got five A* and five As, and Natalee Moore, 16, of Cornwallis Road, scored nine A grades. The overall pass rate at the school was 97 per cent. Top student at Headington Girls School in Oxford, was Laura Cassidy, 14, of Headington, Oxford, who gained ten GCSEs, all at A* or A. She scooped her maths A grade GCSE two years ago.

Out of 74 pupils at the school, 31 received nine or more A or A* grades at GCSE and two girls scored ten A* and scooped an extra qualification in Religious Education.

Headteacher Hilary Fender said: "We were delighted to see the hard work rewarded with an excellent set of results from across the board." Magdalen College School got its best ever GCSE results with 70 per cent of grades being A* and A and 100 per cent of pupils getting at least seven A * to C grades.

There were 25 out of 72 boys in the year who got ten or more A* and A grades.

Headteacher Andrew Halls said: "I am pleased for them, because we have nagged the boys all year and still didn't manage to put them off." At St Edward's School, Woodstock Road, Oxford, half the grades awarded were A* or A grades. Out of the 114 candidates, 113 achieved a minumum of five A* to C grades and the overall pass rate was 100 per cent.

Top pupil Catherine David, 15, of Bardwell Road, Oxford, scooped ten A*s.

D'Overbroeck's College achieved its best ever GCSE results this summer. Of the year 11 students 100 per cent achieved at five A-C, with nearly half of the entries producing a grade A or A*.