The teenager with SEVEN straight As - and the quads who are all celebrating top results

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 08:09 EDT, 14 August 2008

Howard Loh, 19, from Hong Kong, achieved A grades in seven subjects - accounting, Chinese, chemistry, economics, maths, further maths and physics.

While Kevin Cheung, 19, from Hong Kong, and Leonid Ganins, 19, from Russia - Mr Loh's fellow pupils at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire - managed six A grades apiece.

Celebrations: (Left to right) 18-year-old quadauplets Tobi, Tayo, Tolu, and Tosin, who are all members of the Oke family, achieved A and B grades

Headmaster Mark Turner said: 'We are delighted with this year's A-level results. In particular, our chemistry results were exceptional - to have five boys achieve results in the top 10 of all Edexcel's 6,421 candidates in the country is outstanding.'

A spokeswoman for the school said Mr Loh had been offered a place to read maths at Cambridge University, while Mr Cheung and Mr Ganins had received offers from Oxford to study chemistry and engineering respectively.

Identical twins Anika and Nicola Ueckermann will study at the same university following success in their A-levels.

The 18-year-olds, who attended Colchester County High School for Girls, will study at the University of East Anglia.

Anika, who got As in English literature and critical thinking, plus Bs in English language and German, hopes to become a writer. She will study English literature and creative writing at the Norwich-based university.

Double joy: Identical twins Nicola (left) and Anika Ueckermann receive their results

Her sister, Nicola, hopes to become a doctor after completing a degree in medicine. She achieved As in biology and chemistry and a B in Latin.

"I'm relieved," Nicola said. "We're not competitive and didn't mean to choose the same university. We just wanted to be close to home.

"We won't be together all of the time. We need a bit of independence. We need our own lives."

Identical twins Harriet and Emily Caton-Thick were also delighted as they both scooped three A-grade A-levels - and now plan a round-the-world gap year.

The 18-year-olds beamed as they collected their results at fee-paying Brighton College in East Sussex in front of their emotional mother, Annie McManus, 52.

Harriet scored As in psychology, business studies and geography, while her sister scooped top marks in politics, English and geography to help send them to university.

But first the twins plan a round-the-world trip together and with two friends from February 1, taking in countries including New Zealand, Brazil, Fiji and Australia.

A recovering anorexic who once weighed just two-and-a-half stone was celebrating today after winning a place at university, where she plans to learn how to help other sufferers.

Cassia Evans, 19, from Wollaton, Nottingham, battled the illness since the age of eight and was hospitalised twice.

Today she was told she had the grades to go to university and study occupational therapy.

Cassia Evans has battled back from anorexia to take her A-levels - and now wants to help other people get better

She said: 'When I was ill I had art therapy and lots of other different types of therapy and I always wanted to do something like this.

'It can be very creative, you are working with people and there are lots of different sides to it, you can work with children or the elderly.

'I think my experience is valuable because I have been through it myself. I have been through therapy and the only way to understand what someone has gone through is to have gone through it yourself.

'I think I can offer a lot of support because I know what it is like.'

Cassia suffered from such severe anorexia her weight plummeted to two-and-a-half stone

Her condition became so bad when she was 11 that she was hospitalised.

She then recovered but at 16 suffered a relapse and spent 18 months in hospital, during which time she was fed through tubes.

She also lost her best friend, who was anorexic, when she died aged 19 in December 2006.

But despite recovering from her illness, Miss Evans managed to study at New College Nottingham where today she was told she had achieved two As in psychology and English Language and a D in biology.

She has now won a place at York St John University to study occupational therapy.

Miss Evans added: 'When I lost my best friend, that spurred me on because I have seen what it has done. It's made me want to live for her.'

The quadruplets who are ALL celebrating top A-level results

Four extraordinary siblings, made all the more extraordinary by the fact that they are quadruplets, were today celebrating top grade A-level results.

Tolu, Tayo, Tobi and Tosin, all members of the Oke family, are just a couple of minutes apart by birth and all achieved A and B grades at the St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College in Clapham, south-west London.

The siblings, 18, from Woolwich, will not receive the breakdown of their results until noon.

But sisters Tayo and Tolu and brothers Tobi and Tosin were told they will go to their first-choice universities after achieving a clean-sweep of top grades.

Tayo, marginally the oldest of the four, will go to Manchester  University to study business.

Her slightly younger brother Tobi will study English at Goldsmiths, Tosin will study business at Queen Mary University while Tolu, the younger sister of the group will study history at Cambridge University.

When asked how the siblings had all done so well, Tayo explained that their mother, Julie, always encouraged them to try hard at school.

'Our mum really encouraged us from as early as year six and prepared us from a young age to take control of our own learning,' she said.

Tobi also explained: 'We've realised that aiming for the highest is really going to help us. At first we were probably pushed on but now we see it as the best way to help ourselves.'

Tolu added: 'Our mum, being a single mum, has always taught us to be independent and lay our own foundations so even though going to uni is a massive step and a strange city, it's welcome, it's a welcome experience.'

They also said that they will not miss being referred to as 'quad one or quad two' by people who cannot remember their names and being asked if they have ESP with their brothers and sisters.

A student from Afghanistan who spoke little English three years ago scored four As in his A-levels today and secured himself a place at Oxford University.

Waheed Safi, 18, arrived in England from Pakistan three years ago, after his family was forced to flee their home nation.

His father, Khearullah, had vanished some years previously after attracting the displeasure of the ruling regime with his political activities.

Waheed Safi, 18, from Afghanistan, in the science laboratory at Uxbridge College in Middlesex. He is now going to Oxford

With his mother, Kubra, left to bring up their children alone in Kabul, Waheed and his four brothers and sisters were schooled at home - taught Arabic, maths and the sciences, and a little English by a university tutor.

The family were unaware whether Mr Safi, then a chemical engineer in the army, was dead or alive, but his influence encouraged Waheed to study.

Waheed, who now lives in Southall, and is studying at The Academy, Uxbridge College, said: 'When we were in Afghanistan my father always wished that we were educated.

'We used to start learning English in Year 5 in Afghanistan, but my father wanted us to learn English quickly so we had a home tutor we used to come and teach us the basics.'

He added: 'I wasn't in school for very long in Afghanistan. After the conditions got worse, all the schools closed and there was nowhere that you could go to every day.

'It wasn't safe, there were so many risks, you couldn't just go outside, you might get shot.'

The family finally heard from Mr Safi in 2001, and soon after the rest of the family moved to Pakistan.

They were finally reunited in 2005, when Mr Safi met his family at Heathrow Airport after years apart.

Once in England, Waheed was encouraged to take a pre-GCSE course and learn English, but confident in his own abilities he asked to begin studying for GCSEs immediately.

'I could read some English and understand a little, but I couldn't speak it because I had never had a conversation.'

Waheed got A grades in maths, further maths, chemistry and physics.

He has been offered a place at Somerville College to study Engineering Science.

He said: 'Back home you would look at chemistry books and just read them and memorise them.

'Here it is different, there are labs and you can do experiments and see them and understand them.'

The boy who has an AS-level at just 10

Meanwhile, budding web designer Shayan Ahmed was celebrating today after achieving a C grade in his computing AS-level, at just 10 years old.

Shayan, from Walsall, West Midlands, has spent a year studying for the exam at Ryde Teaching Services in Bushey, Hertfordshire.

The youngster, who got his first computer at the age of two, achieved a GCSE B grade in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) when he was seven years old.

Shayan Ahmed, 10, got a C grade in his Computing AS Level

Now he is working on an online blog and hopes to forge a career in web design when he finishes his education.

Shayan, from Broadway North, attends his local primary school all week and commutes to Ryde Teaching Services every Sunday for his computing lessons.

He said: 'I have always loved computers, I find them really interesting and stimulating.

'I've been into IT since the age of two when my grandfather bought me my first computer and at the moment I am in the process of setting up an online blog for my family.'

Asked what his peers at Hydesville Tower School in Walsall think about his academic achievements, he said: 'They think it is cool.

Shayan's father, Dr Masood Ahmed, 38, said: 'We are delighted with his result.

'We have always told him it is not about the result, it is about doing your best and he absolutely did.

'He was very bright and started talking very early. He was almost reading at the age of two and he had finished all the Harry Potter books by the time he was five.

The Olympic swimmer who has put her exam results on hold

Unlike thousands of students across Britain who were finding out their A-level results today, Olympic swimmer Jemma Lowe was putting her celebrations on ice.

The 18-year-old does not want to know how she has done in her exams until she returns from Beijing later this month - allowing her to concentrate on her swimming.

Yesterday she narrowly missed out on the final of the women's 200m butterfly by just 0.14s.

Life on hold: Jemma Lowe in action in the pool at the Beijing Olympics

However, Jemma still has a chance of bringing home a medal, as she is part of the 4x100m medley relay, which begins tomorrow afternoon.

Her sister Naomi, 21, speaking from the family home in Hartlepool, said: 'Jemma doesn't want to know her results until she gets back from the Olympics.

'I've been told to go and pick up her results from school but not to open the envelope.'

Jemma took A-levels in maths, biology and PE at English Martyrs School - combining her studies with her tough training schedule.

Head Joseph Hughes, who knows Jemma's results, said: 'Jemma has done exceptionally well to balance the demands of her A-level course and those of her Olympic training regime.

'She has shown tremendous determination and we are very proud of her success both in the pool as well as the exam hall.'

The teenager now plans to go to university in October and also continue her training for the 2009 World Swimming Championships and 2012 London Olympics.

Table tennis prodigy Sarra Wang said today she was aiming for the 2012 London Olympics after serving up five A-level A grades.

The 18-year-old, of Sible Hedingham, Essex, is currently the sixth-ranked British woman and was previously the country's top under-17 player.

She now plans to go to university in Birmingham to study medicine but said she has hopes of making a career in her sport.

Table tennis prodigy Sarra Wang took five A grades

'It would be absolutely amazing to compete at the London Olympics,' she said.

'I've always wanted to do medicine and table tennis has been a hobby.

'But I'm keeping my options open. I've been watching the Olympics and it does inspire me.'

Miss Wang, who returned home from a training camp in Hungary yesterday, said she intends to combine playing the sport with her university studies.

The Colchester County High School for Girls pupil achieved As in biology, chemistry, maths, further maths and critical thinking.