TO MAKE the top five in your class is a real achievement, but to make the top five out of 362,438 other pupils is quite another.

That's what Gravesend Grammar School for Girls pair Ishani Biswas and Jenny Wallace have achieved in their GCSE results for English literature.

“I was just surprised,” said 16-year-old Ishani, of Pelham Road, Gravesend, who plans to study medicine.

Ishani also gained one of the top five best exam marks for a GCSE course in product design, out of 19,529 other students.

The pair came in the top five of the courses marked by exam board AQA, which issues half of all the country’s GCSE courses.

Fellow star-achiever Jenny Wallace, also 16, of The Drove Way, Istead Rise, said: “I’d been revising hard, but I didn’t expect the reward to be quite this big." She too hopes to study medicine.

FULL STORY IN THIS WEEK'S GRAVESEND MESSENGER