A PLUME student who is over the moon with her GCSE results has been accepted onto an International Baccalaureate in Colchester.

Ashlea Lacey opened up her results on Thursday to a staggering five A*s and five As which included Physics, Maths, Spanish and French.

She will be heading to The Sixth Form Colleage of Colchester as she has been accepted onto an International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma.

The IB Diploma is a well-established two year course towards a qualification that is internationally recognised by universities and employers.

Students choose six subjects from six different areas, with three or four studied at Higher Level and the remainder at Standard Level with an extended essay of 4,000 words.

Ashlea, from Maldon, will be studying Biology, Chemistry, English Language and Literature, Psychology, Maths and French.

She said: “I’m so exstatic about my results and I’m really looking forward to heading to Colchester and beginning my baccalaureate.

“I’ve loved my time at Plume but it will be very nice to have a change of scenery and I think this course will be very suited to me.

“With some of the subjects being at lower level it’ll allow me to balance out the harder ones with the slightly less challenging.

“It will make things a lot more spread out and while it’ll be intense it should be very manageable as long as I work hard.”

Plume Academy celebrated a record level of GCSE pass rates this year, with 70 per cent of all exam entrants achieving an A*-C grade.

This included eight students achieving more than eight A*s, who were Thomas Amner, Jordan Beighton, Poppy Cockburn, Oliver Mulville, Aleksandra Pawlowska, Manny Spelman, Alex Thompson and Ruth Thornton.

Jo Everett, Head of Upper School (Year 9 to 11) said: “I’m absolutely over the moon with all the results our students achieved this year.

“They have all worked so hard, they’ve been a wonderful year group with so much aspiration between them all.

“A lot of them will stay with us and move into new directions, but I’m sure this will only be the first set of great results they will achieve in their lives.”