THREE teenagers are among the top in the country when it comes to knowledge of literary classics.

Michael Eyers, Natalie Fuller and Anna Marchant attend Alsager School, and scored outstanding results in their English literature GCSEs.

More than 355,000 pupils entered the AQA examinations, and the trio were placed in the top five nationally for their literature scores.

The pupils learned the fantastic news when they received a special letter of congratulations from the examinations board.

"To have one top candidate from such a vast number of candidates would have been astonishing," said English teacher Jill Bristow.

"But to have three out of five in one school is amazing - this is one of the subjects with the biggest entry across the country, so the competition is enormous.

"We've always felt the English faculty was high achieving, and they consistently gain over 80 per cent A-star to C grades at GCSE.

"But this is a real credit to the pupils and their teachers."

Alsager School achieved a 71 per cent GCSE pass rate for grades A-star to C.

Michael and Anna achieved nine A-star grades, and five other pupils gained eight A-star grades.

"This has been a great year for the school," said Alsager School headteacher David Black.

"We've had a first class Ofsted report, won the government's Schools Achievement Award, and had our best ever A level results.

"This set of GCSE results is the icing on the cake."

Left to right, Natalie Fuller, Michael Eyres, Anna Marchant. Photo supplied.