Arnav Singh, 16, scored 9s in all 12 GCSEs, 98% in English Literature, while playing county cricket, for St Olave's and for Bromley CC. His mum tells the story.
A 16-year-old from Bromley has come out of GCSE results day with a grade 9 in every one of his twelve subjects, and he did it while playing cricket for Kent at age-group level, for his school and for Bromley Cricket Club.
Arnav Singh, a pupil at St Olave’s Grammar School in Orpington, sat eleven GCSEs this summer, in biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, English language, mathematics, further mathematics, history, geography, Latin and computer science, and was awarded the top grade in all of them. His grade 9 in religious studies came a year early, in 2025. His results statement, shared with Bromley Online by his family, shows the marks behind three of them: 156 out of 160 in English literature, 155 out of 160 in further mathematics and 232 out of 240 in mathematics.
St Olave’s reported that eleven of its pupils were awarded a grade 9 in every subject they sat this year, in a year when 91.5% of the school’s grades came in at 9 to 7, the highest proportion of any Bromley school that published figures. Our Bromley GCSE results 2026 roundup has the borough picture.
The cricket
What sets Arnav apart is the timetable he did it on. His mother, Sunita Ahlawat, wrote to Bromley Online to describe a season in which a single match can take six to eight hours before travel, fitted around training, school fixtures and county commitments in the week.
He has represented Kent at age-group level and plays club cricket for Bromley Cricket Club. According to his family, who reviewed the Play-Cricket records for Kent clubs, he took 77 wickets for Bromley CC in the 2024 season and 126 across club, county and school cricket that year. Bromley Online has not been able to check those totals against the platform itself, so we report them as the family’s figures.
One feat is on the record. In May 2023, in Year 8, Arnav took four wickets in four consecutive balls, all bowled, for St Olave’s against Skinners’ in the third round of the Thomas Cup, and top-scored with 38 in the same match (St Olave’s Grammar School). Four in four is a double hat-trick, and it is rare at any level.
In his own words
Asked how the two fit together, Arnav said: “I love sports in general. It doesn’t always have to go my way, but I try to learn something at every turn. I try to stay positive, never turn down an opportunity and work hard. I think that same mindset translates nicely to my studies as well.”
He returns to St Olave’s this month for A-levels in further mathematics, mathematics, economics, history and computer science.
How rare is twelve 9s?
His family cites government figures putting the number of pupils in England who achieve twelve or more grade 9s at between 10 and 16 in a typical year. Ofqual publishes the national breakdown each results day; we have not matched that particular figure to a published table, so treat it as the family’s reading of the data rather than ours. What is not in doubt is that a clean sweep of 9s across twelve subjects, alongside county sport, is an unusual summer for a 16-year-old in this borough.
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