The Sixth Form College counted nearly 800 A* and A grades, up from over 700 last year. CRGS had 35 students with three or four A*s. Every figure published.
Colchester’s three biggest post-16 providers all put out a statement on A level results day, Thursday 13 August, and only one of them published a number you can check against last year. Read together, the three say more than any of them says alone.
The Sixth Form College: nearly 800 top grades, up from over 700
The Sixth Form College on North Hill counted nearly 800 A* and A grades this summer, and an overall subject pass rate well over 97 per cent, with 100 per cent pass rates in 20 subject areas including Ancient History, German, Spanish, Electronics, History of Art, Classical Civilisations, Dance, Media Studies, Music and Art. (The Sixth Form College, Colchester, Am-A-zing Success)
Principal Jo Cadman said the college had “seen a significant increase in top grades year on year”, and the college’s own published record backs that up. Its results page still carries the 2025 announcement, which reported over 700 A* and A grades, a subject pass rate of approximately 97 per cent, and 100 per cent pass rates in 22 subject areas. So on the college’s own figures the count of top grades rose, the pass rate edged up, and the number of subjects passing every candidate fell by two.
One caveat matters for anyone reading that as a like-for-like improvement. The 2025 statement said nearly 1,500 students completed A level programmes at the college between 2023 and 2025. The 2026 statement gives no cohort size at all, so a bigger pile of top grades cannot be converted into a higher proportion of top grades without a figure the college has not published.
The college also repeated two long-run destination figures it says come from government data: of its students who go on to university, “something like a third achieve a first class degree”, and of those who go to Russell Group universities, 93.3 per cent achieve a first or an upper second.
A £4m building, and the classrooms it buys
Buried in the principal’s results-day quote was a second piece of news. Cadman said the college was “already celebrating the news that we’ve just been awarded £4m to fund a whole new additional building on the site”.
The college set out what that money is for earlier this year, when it announced it was bidding to the government’s Post-16 Capacity Fund. The new teaching block would add nine classrooms, the college already holds planning permission for it, and the stated reason is blunt: to “accommodate some of the increasing number of 16-17-year-olds in the Colchester area”. The college said it was also looking at options to build it greener and faster, and that it works with Colchester Institute so the two providers’ offers fit together across the city. If you follow local development, that block will show up in the Colchester planning news record as it moves.
CRGS: 35 students with three or four A*s
Colchester Royal Grammar School on Lexden Road published a figure it did not publish last year: 35 students achieved three or four A* grades.
Headmaster J Russell said “the vast majority of our students reached the exceptional grades needed to get them to the next stage of their education”, and singled out “those who come from a deprived background or who have special educational needs, many of whom gained the top grades”. He also pointed to two inspections in the same academic year: Outstanding in the boarding social care inspection, and Exceptional in many categories of the school’s day inspection. (Colchester Royal Grammar School, A level results day 2026)
For comparison, the school’s 2025 statement called it “another record year” and said “many students achieved 3 or 4 grades at A*A”, without saying how many. This year it counted them.
CCHSG: a statement without figures
Colchester County High School for Girls called its Year 13 results “excellent” and “outstanding” and thanked staff, parents and governors, but published no pass rate, no grade distribution and no counts. Its statement did carry one fact worth keeping: about a quarter of its sixth form starts Year 12 having transferred in from nearby secondary schools, which the school credits alongside its own teaching for the results. (Colchester County High School for Girls)
That leaves Colchester in the position most towns are in on results day. The celebration is real and the numbers behind it are partial, chosen by each institution, and not directly comparable with each other.
What it means for you
If you are waiting on GCSE results, they land on Thursday 20 August. CCHSG has published its collection window as 9am to 10am for Year 11, with the Year 9 Level 2 Project from 10am to 10.30am; check your own school’s timings, because they differ.
If you did not get the grades you needed, UCAS Clearing is open from 2 July to 19 October 2026, so there is no cliff edge on results day itself. (UCAS, What is Clearing?) Speak to your school or college first if you think a grade is wrong: post-results reviews of marking have to be requested through the centre that entered you, not by you directly.
If you are a Year 11 choosing a sixth form, CCHSG has set its open evening for entry to Year 12 in September 2027 for Wednesday 21 October, 6pm to 8.30pm, with no booking required.
And if you are weighing up which figures to trust, note what is missing. None of the three published a headline A*-B percentage this year. Comparable school-by-school results are published separately by the Department for Education on its compare school and college performance service, not on results day.
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