AN ILKLEY student is today celebrating nine GCSE passes, including seven A*s, despite missing a full year of school to be treated for leukaemia.

Freddie Morse, of Addingham Moorside, underwent chemotherapy, immunotherapy and a bone marrow transplant while battling the disease during throughout his GCSE studies.

The Giggleswick School pupil picked up his results today and said: "I am so pleased and I can’t quite believe it. What I’ve learned from this is to never say never, never give up. I’d like to thank every one of my teachers, all nine of them, who came out to my house to teach me when I couldn’t be at school."

His mother, Sarah, said: "We are so proud of Freddie and the school has been phenomenal. The level of support and pastoral care has been exceptional. We are so grateful."

More than a quarter of GCSE pupils at Gigglewick School were awarded six or more A*/A grades. Overall results this year included almost 40 per cent A*/A grades, which compares with a national average of 21 per cent.

Anna Wood, Assistant Head (Academic), said: "It’s great to see so many of our pupils achieving significantly higher grades than originally predicted at the start of their GCSE programme.

"Over the past 10 years Giggleswick has achieved a value added score at GCSE which would place them in the top five per cent of schools nationally."

Results A* - G Grades – Giggleswick School

K. Assmuth 7; E. Atkinson 8; S. Baker-Jones 11;G. Beardsall 11; J. Bedford 10; A. Brown 11; B. Capstick 11; S.Chaimongkol 4; X. Cheng 10; L.Clark 8; E. Coultherd 8; E. Crossley-Smith 10; E. Dammann 8; M. Dew 8; A. Dumcheva 7; S. Dunne 8; L. Dupont 7; T. Evans 8; F. Frischling 6; Y.Ge 5; P. Grimm 7; F. Hamilton – Wheatley 7; J. Harrison 8; C. Husband 10; J. Hutchinson 8; S. Illingworth 8; S. Ironside 11; A. Jackson 10; M. Jaggar 11; Z. Jameel Asgar 7; S. Jowett 10; I Kay 8; I. Ladds 12; E. Leech 11; R. Lloyd 11; C.Lu 7; C. Ma 9; G. Magell 7; A. Mills 8; H. Milton 8; S. Morphet 8; C. Morris 8; M. Morris 8; F. Morse 9; E. Oliver 12; A. Orenga De Gaffory 9; M. O’Shea 10; A. Perez Ferrandiz 8; A. Pethybridge 7; W. Richmond 8; W. Roberts 7; Z. Cheng 6; C. Smith 8; H. Smith 7; N. Smith 8; R. Snowden 8; H. Stadler 6; G. Tankard 8; M. Taylor 10; A. Teres 7; J. Tither 8; F. Tomasso 9; F. Von Hodenberg 7; B. Webber 8; T. Webster 7; G. Willacy 12; T. Wolfenden 8; T. Wong 11; W. Xu 6