NINE bright sparks from a North-East college have been offered Oxbridge university places.

This number of offers to students of Queen Elizabeth sixth form college, Darlington, almost matches the record 11 offered two years ago.

This year's successful applicants - six girls and three boys - now have to work hard to get the high A-level grades needed to secure their places at Oxford and Cambridge.

Of the nine pupils, three arrived at Queen Elizabeth from Hummersknott School, Philip Tuddenham, Matthew Hunter and Vicky Bostock, who look forward to studying, respectively, computer science at Cambridge, natural science at Cambridge and theology at Oxford.

Five of the others are Cambridge bound. Joanne Mann, a former Longfield School pupil, will study history, while Martin Insley, formerly of St Francis Xavier School, Richmond, will study engineering, and Hannah Marr, who arrived from St John's RC Comprehensive, in Bishop Auckland, will study English.

Sarah Buxton, formerly of Carmel School, will study modern languages, while Helen Cook, who went to Ian Ramsey School, Stockton, will study social and political sciences. Oxford candidate Amy Hayes, who came to the college from Branksome School, will read English.

Principal David Heaton said: "These are nine excellent students and we are delighted at their well-deserved success. It is very pleasing to have a significant number of Oxbridge successes and we expect this to be reflected in our A-level examination results in the summer."

Helen Cook said: "It's very exciting to have got this far, but there's still a lot of hard work to do to get the high A-level grades I need in sociology, biology and history."