Results day: Derbyshire school's misspelt GCSE banner put up
A school put up a banner celebrating its GCSE results - but failed to spot the spelling error on it.
The Pingle Academy, in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, accidentally congratulated its pupils on their record-breaking "GSCE results". Deb Holland, the assistant principal, admitted she had not spotted the typo when she proofread it. She said she had been an "idiot", but did not want her oversight to detract from the school's "amazing" results. A picture of the banner containing the error also appeared on the school's Twitter feed. "Fortunately I'm not an English teacher," Ms Holland said, referring to the incident as "bannergate". "But this year's results have been genuinely record-breaking." She said many people passed the sign without noticing the error and she has now picked up a replacement sign. The percentage of students achieving grades 5 to 9 increased to 48% this year at the school, their best ever results. More than 700,000 teenagers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their results earlier. There has been a slight increase in the GCSE pass rate and the percentage of top grades this year, despite concerns over the difficulty of exams. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.