Students rank among top scorers

Two of Bunbury’s top Year 12 students admit they could hardly believe believe their eyes when the number 99 appeared at the start of their exam results.

Manea Senior College student Jessica Lawler achieved an Australian Tertiary Admittance Rank of 99.5, which matched the score of Bunbury’s top 2015 performer, fellow Manea student Daniel Lee.

She was one of three students from her school to achieve an ATAR above 99 along with Jacob McGruddy and Shelley Goff.

Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School student Kaiden Price scored 99.45 while Bunbury Catholic College’s Andrew Italiano also scored above 99.

Manea Senior College principal Rod Rykers said the school’s results, which also included 10 students with ATAR scores above 97, were their best ever in terms of individual performances.

“I’m really proud of the students and the effort they put in,” Mr Rykers said.

“It is quite a stressful process for students and staff because they have had to work extremely hard.”

Jessica, who plans to study medicine at UWA this year, only learnt yesterday she was her school’s top performer.

“It’s nice, but at the same time everyone did an amazing job,” Jessica said.

“Everyone did the best we could so we should all be proud.

“My advice is to start strong because it is hard to lift your score if you don’t, whereas if you start strong it is easier to maintain that the whole way through.”

Jacob is looking east for his next move with aims of studying actuarial science at Sydney’s Macquarie University and credited Manea for the trust placed in students.

Bunbury was not represented in either the Education Department’s list of general exhibition winners, which acknowledges the State’s top 50 performers, or the subject exhibitions for the top student in each subject.