A top pupil from Exmouth Community College is celebrating after achieving an incredible 13 A* grades in her GCSEs.

Holly Quilter, 16, had already enjoyed a successful year, picking up the college’s Premier Cup for the top pupil, but managed to round it off with one of the best sets of results in the country.

She said: “It was what I was predicted but I never thought I would get it. It was a bit of a surprise to be honest.”

Holly says the key to her success was not to be overwhelmed by the exams piling up, and to plan out her revision around her lessons.

“Revision is just a lot of stress, but if you just relax and do each day as it comes you can get through it.

“If you did it all at once it would be a nightmare, but I was highlighting school timetables and judging when I could do revision.”

To add to Holly’s results’ day nerves, she was not able to go to the college and pick them up in person, as she was in London attending a prestigious National Youth Theatre Ensemble Course.

That meant her mum, Sue, had to go and pick up the results for her, initially planning to tell Holly when she returned home last weekend, however, when head of year Andrew Bown saw how well Holly had done he told Sue to phone her daughter and deliver the good news there and then.

Holly said: “My family are all a bit gobsmacked to be honest. They all said I worked hard. My mum said she thought I’d do well, but not that well.”

With her GCSEs now behind her, Holly will now be joining the college’s sixth form to study A-levels in maths, further maths, physics and chemistry.