An A level student whose mother died just weeks before her exams is celebrating winning a place at Cambridge after gaining five A grades.

Abhilashaben Patel, 18, will study medicine after gaining top marks in chemistry, biology, maths, physics and general studies.

Abhilashaben, who attends King Edward VI Girls Grammar School in Handsworth, Birmingham, buried her mother just one week before the exams began.

She said: "I think the fact that I had so much support from my family and from school got me through it.

"I had a couple of weeks off to come to terms with what had happened, and then I had to really force myself to get back into studying."

Headmistress Elspeth Insch said her pupil had shown remarkable maturity in coping with her mother's sudden death.

'Very proud'

"I think she has coped remarkably well. Not only did she have to deal with her own grief, but she also became a mum to her three younger sisters overnight.

"She had done incredibly well and we are very proud of her," she said.

Eight Essex girls from the same school all got five grade As.

It was just one success among a bumper crop of A levels thrown up by yet another record pass rate - the 17th year in which overall performance has improved.

'Absolutely thrilled'

Monica Curtis, 53, head teacher at Chelmsford County High School for Girls, said the success of her school was due to the hard work of teachers and pupils and called for an end to "dumbing down" criticism.

She said: "I am absolutely thrilled. They were a good year and I always expected very highly of them. But they have exceeded expectations.

"I don't think it is dumbing down. I think we as teachers are getting better at doing it and I think the kids are better at doing it as well."

Stephen Egli gained six A grades at the King Edward VI school in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Stephen, who is deputy head boy at his school, got top grades in three maths papers, physics, chemistry and general studies and is going on to study engineering at Cambridge.

His head teacher Tim Moore-Bridger said: "It is a quite outstanding achievement, a remarkable performance.

"Stephen is an incredibly unassuming young man who is just delighted to have done so well."

Grandfather's record

Grandfather Terry Tyack has been celebrating breaking his own world record for A level passes with his 26th success.

The 73-year-old achieved a grade C in modern history after studying at Trowbridge College in Wiltshire.

He has now decided to try and boost his total to 27 next year, as he is hoping to enrol on a film studies course in the autumn.

He said: "They called it modern history but it was just like general knowledge for me because I lived through most of it.

"The syllabus went up to 1980 and covered both world wars, Hitler and everything which I still remember quite well."

Mr Tyack, who lives in Trowbridge, started taking his A-levels in 1973 to help encourage his daughter and got into the Guinness Book of Records with his 23rd pass in 1997.

He has one grade A, in business studies, three Bs, six Cs, nine Ds and seven Es. He has only failed one A level - applied maths.