There were mixed emotions at Oaks Park High School today as students collected GCSE results on the same day as the funeral of popular teacher Craig Foster.

Mr Foster died last Wednesday just weeks after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, aged just 51.

Head teacher Steve Wilks congratulated students on their hard work.

He said: “I am really pleased with the performance of our students who worked incredibly hard to achieve these results,”

Although the percentage of students gaining five A* to Cs including English and Maths was down on last year, Mr Wilks said there had been some outstanding individual results.

Jaimini Kara, Ryan Sumray and Trina Barua all got 11 As and A*s, while Sonali Kadia, Mathuri Karunakaran and Sumiyya Alum achieved 10 As and A*s.

Sonali said: “I’m so happy, I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t expect to do so well!”

Parents Kiran and Sanjay said they were “very, very proud” of Sonali. To read the school’s touching tribute to Mr Foster click here.

Nationwide, just over two thirds (68.8pc) of entries scored A*-C, up 0.7 percentage points on last summer, according to statistics published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ).

In total, 61.7pc of English entries scored a C or higher this year, down 1.9 percentage points from last summer – a fall thought to be the biggest in the qualification’s history.

Maths saw an opposite result, with 62.4pc of entries gaining an A*-C grade, up a massive 4.8 percentage points on 2013.

Follow live coverage of results day on our rolling blog.