A pupil who missed her mocks while battling Covid and another who moved from France in between lockdowns were among the high achievers as city students collected their A-level results.
Students from Jane Austen College were hailed by their principal for "bucking the trend" of sliding results by delivering an improved set of grades on the previous academic year - despite being the first cohort in three to sit traditional exams.
Among the college's top achievers was 18-year-old Lily Richard, who is missed mock exams after testing positive for Covid. She came away with three As in politics, psychology and history.
She said: "It was horrendous as missing my mock exam did add another layer of stress. The school was really supportive and helpful throughout the lockdowns though."
She is due to study medieval history at Chichester University.
Noah Hammond, 18, relocated to Norfolk from France just before starting his studies - and has earned a place studying French and German at the University of Cambridge. He came away with A*s in French, German and English literature and a B in politics.
Kenzie Arneil started her A-levels a year late after initially taking a different route out of secondary school, making her one of the few students in the cohorts to go in with exam experience.
The 19-year-old earned three A grades, in history, psychology and law, and is hoping to get a place on Norfolk Constabulary's degree programme.
The college had 95pc A* to C grades, compared with 84pc in 2021 - with 41 graded A* or A.
Principal Summer Turner said: "The overarching message was that results were expected to be down last year, but ours went up, so it's really nice to be bucking the national trend."
Elsewhere in Norwich, several schools improved their results on 2019 - the last time results were determined by traditional exams.
These schools include Sir Isaac Newton College, Notre Dame, City College, Norwich High School for Girls and Open Academy.
Other success stories saw seven out of 10 grades at Norwich High School for Girls come back as A* or A, where 99pc of grades were C or above.
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