Students in Mid Sussex were today celebrating another record-breaking set of A-level results.

Anxiety turned to joy as envelopes were torn open to reveal the highest-ever pass rate for the 20th year running.

Headteachers were quick to defend their pupils, rejecting claims by some employers that A-levels have become meaningless.

Burgess Hill School for girls recorded a 98.4 per cent pass rate, with a record 84 per cent achieving an a-b grade. Thirteen pupils got straight As.

Lydia Hutchinson achieved four As and will read chemistry at Merton College, Oxford.

Cindy So, who achieved five grade As, will study Art at St Martins in London.

Lydia, 18, got As in English, chemistry, maths and physics. She is now going to study chemistry at Oxford.

She said: "It's definitely not true that exams are getting easier, especially for the sciences and for maths which were really hard work."

Sam Stephens, 18, who got three As in chemistry, biology and geography at Burgess Hill School for Girls, said: "I'm very pleased.

"I did not expect it at all. I don't think A-levels are getting easier and it puts the dampeners on our hard work when people say that."

Alex Buchanan, 18, who is going to study business management at Cirencester, and who got an A,B,C in biology, chemistry and business studies, said it didn't matter what subject you did as long as you enjoyed it.

She said: "Business studies is more applicable to everyday life even though some people see it as a soft subject. I'm very happy with the result and I wasn't expecting it, especially because I have dyslexia which made it a bit harder."

Amy Crofts, 18, is going to study medicine at Nottingham University. She got three As in chemistry, biology and economics.

She said: "I feel fantastic. It has been very hard work. It's annoying when so many people say it's not hard to get the grades. I cannot wait to go to university."

Headmistress Susan Gorham said: "It makes me angry that people say the exams are easier.

"The exams are different from the Sixties but they are still extremely challenging."

The 130 pupils at Hazelwick School in Crawley scored a near perfect 99.7 per cent pass rate.

They too had a record breaking A-B pass rate with 61 per cent scoring at least one of the top two grades.

Elsewhere Collyers College in Horsham achieved a 98.2 per cent pass rate and Hurstpierpoint College scored 98 per cent.

After last year's A-level fiasco some schools, including Ardingly College which last year scored 98.4 per cent, have refused to make public their results until September.