One of the country's leading grammar schools again secured a 100 per cent pass rate at A level, with 96 per cent of candidates achieving grades A-C.

Some 87.6 per cent of the 117 girls who sat exams at King Edward VI Handsworth School Birmingham got either grade A or B, a 6 per cent rise on last year's figures.

Four candidates - all of whom will now go to Oxbridge colleges - achieved five A grades.

Headmistress Elspeth Insch said: "I am delighted by the results."

The four girls who achieved five A grades were:

* Farhana Alam, aged 18, from Aston, in biology, chemistry, English, psychology and general studies. She will now study biological sciences at St Hugh's College, Oxford;

* Annabel Lee, 18, from Moseley, in biology, chemistry, English, history and general studies. She will now study law at University College, Oxford;

* Anika Murray-Wilkins, 18, from Aston, in maths, further maths, French, physics and general studies. She has an open offer place at Oxford and hopes to go to St Hugh's to study maths;

* Lindsey Wilson, 18, from Sutton Coldfield, in chemistry, maths, further maths, physics and general studies. Has a place at Newnham College, Cambridge, to study engineering.

Annabel Lee, who was the school's head girl, also learned she had passed her Grade 8 guitar exam with distinction.

The teenager, who wants to work in human rights law, said: "I'm really, really pleased to get the results. I wasn't really nervous until today.

"I'm going to go out and enjoy the rest of the summer." Anika Murray-Wilkins, who plans to work in engineering after university, said: "I feel great. I was really nervous and didn't sleep.

"Thinking back, I couldn't remember how the exams went. But it's all come back now."

Lindsey Wilson took time off from civil engineering firm Atkins, where she is working during a gap year, to collect her results. "I don't know what to say. I'm shocked to get all As," she said.

Farhana Alam was also told she was one of four girls from the school who were in the top five highest grades in psychology in the country.