THE impact of Bristol's "academies revolution" is shown by this year's GCSE results.

The city was at the heart of the move towards independently-run state schools and now has eight, five of which opened two years ago.

These have just seen their first students complete their two-year GCSE courses – with great success.

Two of the 2008 academies were former fee-charging schools, Colston's Girls' School and Bristol Cathedral Choir School, which joined the state system.

All CGS pupils passed five or more good GCSEs, at grades A* to C, and 91 per cent achieved at least five at the same grades including English and maths, while the figures for BCCS were 80 and 75 per cent respectively.

The three others, Oasis Brightstowe in Shirehampton, Oasis Bristol in Hengrove and Merchants' Academy in Withywood, replaced struggling local authority schools.

All were celebrating significant successes yesterday.

Oasis Brightstowe saw its figures up to 71 and 29, the latter up 13 percentage points on last year.

Principal Julie Winterman, who retired at the end of last term, said the results were encouraging and would provide a good platform for her successor Matt Butler to continue the progress.

She said: "These results show a marked improvement on previous years. It is our aim to provide a good school for the local community. This year's success is a credit to all the students and staff who have worked so hard to drive up standards and achieve some extremely challenging targets."

Oasis Bristol's results were equally impressive at 81 and 28.

Principal Rebecca Clark said: "We have improved in every single area across the board and I am very pleased.

"The important thing for us is that we have continued to make progress at a faster rate than national averages. Next year I am confident that we will improve again."

Merchants' Academy saw increases in both measures, at 57 and 25 (up from 17).

Chairman of the academy's governors Denis Burn said: "We are very pleased with this outcome and the students and staff should all be very proud of themselves. The academy has worked incredibly hard to drive up standards and deliver a first-class education, and these results show that we are definitely heading in the right direction."

Bristol's first academy, City Academy in Lawrence Hill, which opened in 2003, achieved record figures of 82 and 35.

Retiring principal Ray Priest said: "They're the best results we've ever achieved and I'm so proud of all the students. Every year since we opened in 2003 we have improved; there isn't a year that we've gone backwards and I know the academy will continue to improve under Gill Kelly's leadership."

Bristol's second academy, Bristol Brunel in Speedwell, opened by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2007, saw some excellent results after a dip last year. Its figures were up more than 20 percentage points on both measures, at 83 and 45.

Former principal Armando di Finizio said he was really pleased for the students.

Meanwhile, the city's newest academy, Bristol Metropolitan Academy, achieved huge rises in its figures of 85 and 39, up from 43 and 30 last year.

The two academies are part of the Cabot Learning Federation with John Cabot Academy in Kingswood, the area's top performer with figures of 96 and 72.

Executive principal David Carter said: "I am thrilled with the GCSE results for the Cabot Learning Federation this year. John Cabot has sustained its excellent performance whilst Bristol Brunel and Bristol Metropolitan have outperformed even my ambitious expectations.

"To see so many students achieve such outstanding results is a wonderful recognition of the talent and hard work of staff and young people across our federation."