The end of term report for those who took their A levels is littered with tales of the successes of teaching staff and dedicated youngsters who secured the borough's highest ever pass rates.

At Trinity School, Shirley, no student failed any exam - a 100 per cent success rate across the board.

Other schools in the borough just missed the golden mark: Croydon High School (99.6 per cent), Whitgift School (99.4 per cent), Old Palace (98 per cent), Archbishop Tennison's School (95.6 per cent), Cambridge Tutors (95 per cent), Croham Hurst School (94 per cent), John Ruskin College (91 per cent), Coloma Convent (more than 90 per cent), Coulsdon College (87.2 per cent) and Croydon College (82 per cent).

But these rough figures do not represent the whole story and as schools basked in glory, individual stories of successes abounded.

Trinity schoolboy Nick Cornish battled cancer, worked relentlessly for the charity that helped him and still scooped three grade Bs.

Croydon College student Nazanin Jamali only stopped studying for three days - Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Easter Day during the whole year. The 22-year-old from Bingham Road, Addiscombe, who came from Iran with poor English two years ago, was rewarded with two As and a B.

Tim Taylor of Radcliffe Road, East Croydon, got four grade As - a result all the more remarkable for a 16-year-old.

He is now on the way from Whitgift School to Warwick University to read Maths.

Tomorrow, (Thursday) the whole nail-biting process is repeated with the publication of the GCSE results.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.