Students and staff have been celebrating the best-ever A-level results at a Shadwell college.

Forty-five per cent of all grades awarded were either A* or B —up nine per cent on the previous year at Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School.

Seventy per cent of students also achived between A* and C, according to the school head, who said it meant 98 per cent of students had got their first choice of university.

Collegiate Principal Jackie Johnson said: “This is the best set of results the school has ever achieved. We have at least six students with straight A*,A or B. The results are a tribute to a lot of hard work by a lot of people.”

She said most students or those “who actually cared” were very conscious of the competitive job market and the “pressure from society” to achieve.

Leading the way was 18-year-old Thayna Berto, who gained five As, including three straight As and two A*.

After a gap year working in South America, she has landed a place at St Edmunds College, Cambridge reading Education. “I am absolutely thrilled,” she said.

Other high achievers were Hanad Ahmed with four As, who will be heading for Manchester to study mechancial engineering, and Gertruda Dargevicuite, with two As and two A*, who will be reading history at Bristol.

Sathit Suwannakul, with three As and a B, will either study medical biochemistry at Leicester or medicine elsewhere.

Just two years after arriving in Britain from Vietnam. Le Quy Bui, 19, gained an A* and two Bs.

Qui, has lived lived with his aunt in Hackney, after travelling to Britian alone, while studying at Bishop Challoner for two-years. He is now off to read international relations University of Sussex.

After opening his result Qui spoke to his parents in Vietnam on his mobile who told him: “It’s brilliant.”

“I learned English for 11 years before coming to Britain. But I found the first few months of my course difficult to follow. So, I just had to work extra hard,” Qui explained.

Hard work also paid off for Adedotun Bamidele, 18, who said he studied at least three hours a day to achieve an A* in math, A in chemistry and a B in physics. He said the results would secure him a place studying chemical engineering at University College London, but he was unable to check if it was enough to get into Imperial College London after the UCAS website crashed.

Adedotun said: “I’ll be just as happy with a place at UCL. Adedotun said he “didn’t like talking about” his GCSE results but that he had “improved a lot” by putting some of his social life on hold for his studies. “I did the best I could and it is has paid off,” he said.

Uchenna Ekemezie, 18, is off to Brunel University to study product design after gaining an A in product design, a B in English and literature, a C in math and a D in art. The four-year sandwich course includes a year working in industry.

Jasmine Muda, 19, of Poplar, secured a place at Leicester University studying economics after getting a B in politics, B in economics, and A in philosophy and ethics. She hopes university will land her job in city banking.

Farzana Begum, 19, of the Isle of Dogs, will also be studying ecomics at Nottingham Trent University after gaining Bs in sociology and economics and a C in psychology. But she is torn between going into banking or teaching.