Students at two Bermudian private schools have achieved "excellent'' results in this year's British General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations.

Staff at the Bermuda High School for Girls and Saltus Grammar School proudly displayed the results of their classes of 1999, both saying that the students outperformed their UK counterparts who also sat the exams in June.

BHS headmistress, Eleanor Kingsbury, explained that thirty students sat a total of 227 examinations of which 85.4% earned grades between A* and C.

Even more significant is the fact that 37 percent of the school's results were ranked A* or A, compared with 15.2% in the UK.

This is an 11% increase from results of last year and a 28% increase when compared with the figures from nine years ago.

According to Mrs. Kingsbury: "These results reflect the school's emphasis on developing students' critical thinking skills.'' She went on to say, "This year's results are particularly encouraging in light of BHS's recent bid for authorisation to institute the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

"They should indicate BHS's readiness to offer this rigourous college preparatory programme.'' Mrs. Kingsbury pointed out that six students from the class of 1999 had gone to schools in three countries to study for the IB Diploma because "it offers an internationally recognised and respected university entrance credential''.

Two such students are Candace Marson and Tara Kessaram who both achieved top marks in their GCSEs.

Mrs. Kingsbury also chose to commend five girls who achieved grades all in the A* to B range.

They are Emma Farge , Michelle Skinner , Sacha Llewellyn , Karen Jones and Sommer Fasulo .

She said: "With a pass rate of 100% and 83.3% of our students surpassing the British preferred standard of five results of C and above, this class has done BHS proud.'' Meanwhile, Saltus Grammar School's Development Director, Daniel Blagg explained that "66.2% of the grades achieved by Senior 5 students were between A* and C compared to the UK figure of 62.8%''.

He continued: "Moreover, the percentage of Saltus students achieving the benchmark figure of five GCSEs at grades A* and C was 70% compared to 48% in the UK.'' According to Mr. Blagg, the school's reason for entering students for the GCSE exams is "because they are designed to test a wide range of abilities in a number of academic disciplines and they are used for university entry''.

Commenting on his student's overall good performance, new Saltus Headmaster Nigel Kermode stated: "At a time when there is widespread concern about the standards of literacy, Saltus' results in English are particularly pleasing.'' He added 100% of the students who took the exams achieved pass grades between A* and G compared to 91% in the UK.

Mr. Kermode also praised 11 particularly noteworthy scorers: Ian Ostroff Striffler, Eli Lipschultz, Jason Cabral, Ryan Marshall, Megan Leitch, Kahlilah Robinson, Andrew Shaw, Christopher Brough, Spencer Conway, Kim Frith and Sharmini Thamotheram.