TRIPLETS Alison, Helen and Katie Prescott will soon be separated for the first time thanks to their sparkling A-level results.

The three, who have been pupils at Durham High School since they were four, opened their envelopes together yesterday to find they had each received A grades in all subjects - notching up ten A-levels between them.

Each will now head to a different university, where they will continue a long-held family tradition and read medicine.

Alison, who got As in biology, chemistry and geography, has a place at Leeds. Helen, who received As in biology, chemistry, physics and maths, will go to Sheffield, and Katie, with her As in biology, chemistry and physics, will study at Nottingham.

Katie said: "It is going to feel very strange because it will be the first time we have been apart, but we will all be near enough to see each other regularly."

Ecstatic over their results, the 18-year-olds rushed home to tell their mother Gill, a vet, and telephoned their father, Richard, a consultant at Bishop Auckland Hospital.

Their grandparents and great grandparents were all doctors.

Helen said: "We individually decided in the end that we would like to read medicine.

"It has been really hard and we have had to work for them, but now we can celebrate.''

The sisters had a total of 26 GCSEs from the High School, which this year had a 100 per cent pass rate at A-levels at Grade D and above.

Sibling success also came at Durham School, where identical twins Christopher and Jonathan Best, 18, each gained five grade A passes in their A-levels.

Christopher, who got As in French, German, English literature, history and general studies, will read law at Robinson College, Cambridge.

Jonathan, who matched his brother grade for grade in mathematics, biology, chemistry, French and general studies, will study medicine at Trinity College, Oxford.