THE wait is over for thousands of Dorset students expecting their GCSE results today.

And school heads have hailed them as the best results yet and said that pupils will be delighted that their hard work has paid off.

Many schools and colleges in the county have seen exam performances rocket, with scores of students gaining top results.

Tim Balmforth, headteacher of All Saints' School in Weymouth, said that pupils had scooped the school's best results so far.

He said that the school has see a nine per cent increase from last year's results to 60.1 per cent in the GCSE league table figures, which means that 60.1 per cent of pupils have achieved five or more level A* to level C grades.

He also said that this was the first time that the school had broken the 60 per cent barrier in the league table.

He added: "I wish to be the first to congratulate pupils, staff and parents on a superb set of results.

"Our students will be delighted with their results and they reflect the strong partnership between pupils, staff and parents and the hard work from all parties.

"Hidden within our statistics are the individual stories of success, which will never be published, resulting from five years of study at All Saints."

And pupils from Royal Manor School on Portland will also be celebrating after headteacher Paul Green said that he was very pleased with this year's results as a whole and that there were some outstanding individual results as well as some great improvements.

Tim Meacham. GCSE exam results co-ordinator at Weymouth College, said that this year's results were the best for the last four years.

He said: "We are delighted with the results with both our full-time and part-time students doing exceptionally well.

"Overall, 61 per cent of our GCSE students achieved A* to C grades, which is brilliant considering that they are people who have come back to college to re-sit their exams."

Nationally, GCSE pass rates are up by 0.5 per cent to 57.1 per cent at grades A* to C and they are also up 0.3 per cent to 16.1 per cent at grades

A and A* but overall pass rates were unchanged at grades A to G.

Paul Sokoloff, convenor of the Joint Council for General Qualifications, said: "We are very pleased to report a record number of examination results for GCSE and related subjects, with performance broadly in line with the 2000 examination results despite the foot and mouth crisis."

Thomas Hardye School pupils in Dorchester are celebrating the highest GCSE marks ever, with 73 per cent of the 358 pupils who took the exams gaining five or more A-C grades.

One girl is said to have gained 11 A* grades, and thrilled headteacher Iain Melvin says there have been many personal success stories.

He said: "The results are just superb - really quite excellent. I am very pleased."