PUPILS woke up yesterday to some of the best A level results achieved by schools in the county.

Students flocked to schools to collect results and celebrate or commiserate with friends to discover how they fared and the news was excellent.

Owain Mulligan, a student at Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham, was awarded one of the top marks in A level English out of 11,100 candidates in the country.

He will go on to read Modern History at Oxford University.

His headteacher Graham Hill said: "One quarter of the year group obtained three top A grades or better and 18 gained four A grades."

Students at The Amersham School, Stanley Hill, Amersham, attained an 88 per cent pass rate at A level and a 100 per cent pass rate at GNVQ in ten subjects. Meanwhile there were scenes of relief and joy outside Amersham and Wycombe College, Stanley Hill, Amersham, where the overall pass rate was 79 per cent.

Andrew O'Connell, 27, from Stoke Mandeville, was pleased with his results after being out of the education system for five years.

He said: "I got a B for biology but I thought I would have got an A. I also got an E for chemistry which I am not so pleased with. I needed two Bs to get into Brunel University but I just don't know what to do."

Katherine Wake, 17, from Farnham Common, cried as she opened her envelope and saw she had got a B in AS level Spanish.

She said: "Although I go to Beaconsfield High School they didn't have the course I wanted, which was Spanish so I had to do a night school in it.

"I came here for three hours a week every Tuesday after school. But it was definitely all worth it."

Chesham Park Community College achieved an A level result of 72 per cent.

Chesham High School head of sixth form, Ann Marie McNaney, said about the students' results: "They broke the 20 average points per pupil barrier but they have put lots of hard work in. The AS results were excellent."

Girls at Dr Challoner's High School, Little Chalfont, got 64 per cent at grades A and B and an almost 100 per cent pass rate in their A level exams.

All A level students at The Chalfonts Community College gained at least one A level pass and the average UCAS point score increased from ten points to 15.