TWO Suffolk students may well be specialising in science - but they were also among the best in the country in an English literature exam.Teenagers Henry Herbert and Simon Hill are today thrilled at achieving some of the highest marks in the county in their GCSE exams.

TWO Suffolk students may well be specialising in science - but they were also among the best in the country in an English literature exam.

Teenagers Henry Herbert and Simon Hill are today thrilled at achieving some of the highest marks in the county in their GCSE exams.

Henry, 16, achieved one of five highest marks in examining board AQA's exam, while 16-year-old Simon achieved one of the top five in the OCR exam.

Henry, who was a pupil at St Alban's Catholic High School, Ipswich, has now joined Woodbridge School's sixth form for his A Levels.

Henry, of Half Moon Lane, Grundisburgh, studied literature including Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

He said: “I had no idea that I had done as well as I had done. I am not an English student by nature - I am now doing maths, further maths, chemistry and physics.”

Dennis McGarry, headteacher at St Alban's, added said: “Henry is a talented student with a prowess for understanding and analysing literature. We are thrilled both for him and for his teachers Po Poo Lim Edwards and Rebecca Guyver.”

Simon, of Tunstall Green, Tunstall, studied for his GCSEs and is now doing his A Levels at Woodbridge School.

He studied literature including William Golding's Lord of the Flies and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion - and is now doing A Levels in chemistry, physics, maths and further maths and an AS Level in German.

He said: “I thought about doing English but decided not to. I think it would be too much work. I think I'm stronger in sciences and would like to go into some science career.

“I was definitely not expecting such a high mark.”

Woodbridge School pupil Maria Wyard, who has since moved out of the country, also gained one of the five highest marks in the OCR board's English literature GSCE exam.

The school's headmaster Stephen Cole said: “This is definitely not luck, but yet again evidence that our staff stretch very able pupils to the top.”

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