SEVEN students from Cirencester Sixth Form College have secured Oxbridge places and they're all from Swindon.

The impressive results haul is the college's best for many years - an achievement the principal has described as "outstanding".

Among the Swindon students getting the good news on Thursday morning were former Highworth Warnerford pupil Cecily Fasham who will be going to Cambridge to study English Literature and Jessy Zhang, formerly a pupil at Bradon Forest, who will be donning her scrubs soon as a medical student, also at Cambridge.

Jessy said: "I’m really happy with my results. The teachers here have been absolutely fantastic, really friendly and helpful.

"I wouldn’t have achieved these results without the support of my tutor and lecturers."

Also heading to Cambridge are Lauren Purdy who will be studying to become a vet and Sophie Illsley, a former Commonweal pupil, who will be reading Geography.

Opting for a closer destination but one no-less impressive are former Ridgeway students Leasha John and Karen Chouhan. They will be studying Medicine at Oxford University.

Thomas Schaffner will also be heading along the A420 to Oxford where he will studying the famous PPE trio of Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Among Tom's new classmates will be Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate who gained international admiration when she stood up to extremists and would-be assassins attempting to deny young girls the right to education in her native Pakistan.

Of course Oxbridge is not the be all and end all of university education in this country and many other Swindon students are heading off to impressive destinations too.

Carrying on what is now a strong tradition of producing vets and medics at Cirencester College, Pam Nelson will go Bristol to study Medicine and Eddie Sewell becomes a medic at Southampton, they are former Isambard and Commonweal School pupils respectively.

Lydia Zioupos, formerly of Highworth Warneford, will study Medicine at Edinburgh while Beth Turner, formerly of Isambard, will begin her medical journey at Leicester.

Lydia said: "I am so very grateful to the College for the excellent teaching and support over the past two years, as well as the commitment to see us all do well, thank you Cirencester."

Principal Jim Grant added: "I would like to congratulate our students on another year of outstanding results.

"We wish all our students every success in their futures."