When Oscar dos Santos opened his GCSE results at Birmingham City Academy, he ran around the school hall. “I got a new one!” he screamed. “I got a new one!”
It had been a long journey for the 16-year-old, who spent the better part of two academic years studying at home during the 2020 and 2021 Covid lockdowns, and was now part of the first cohort to sit his GCSEs in two years .
“There have been many interruptions. During Covid, all my target grades went down,” he said. “When I came back in year 10 I was in a really bad state, both mentally and academically. I didn’t have much hope.”
He has now achieved the grades he needs to study performing arts at Ormiston Academy in Birmingham, with a mix of grades 5-9. “I have a new one in the story,” he said. “I was never good at math, but I got an A, I pulled it out of the bin. I’m really happy. I put in a lot of work.”
Oscar dos Santos celebrates his exam results. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
There were many shouts of joy in the school hall on Thursday, but also some tears from students who had not achieved the grades they had hoped for.
The government said it planned to tackle grade inflation and as a result the proportion of top grades in England fell from last year and the overall pass rate also fell.
“We’ve been told this all year, which is very likely [grades] it will be higher than in 2019, but lower than the previous two years. And we were prepared for that,” said Rebecca Bakewell, headteacher of the inner-city secondary school, which is part of the Core Education Trust. “But we’re still incredibly happy with the grades our young people have achieved.”
Most students said they felt extra stress being the first students to sit exams since before Covid, and the first not to receive teacher-assessed grades.
Headteacher Rebecca Bakewell on results day. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
“I’ll be real, there was a lot of anxiety. We did mocks, but it was our first time back to the exam structure since 2019, so it was hard to adjust to. But we did it,” said Jamil Charles, who scored a mix of fours and fives and went on to study engineering, business and computer science at a local university.
“I definitely felt more pressure and everyone was saying the results weren’t going to be as good as last year, so I was worried,” said Shelby Yates, who scored eight grades 8 through 9. “That’s why I’m so happy. I did better than I expected.”
Not everyone found it difficult. Jia Le Chen scored an impressive series of eights and nines, and hoped to study maths, further maths, physics and computer science at a local sixth-form grammar school.
“Although yes, they didn’t have to take exams last year, but everyone got better results, meaning there was more competition,” he said. “If this year we take the exams and the grades drop a little, it means that if I do better, I will stand out more. So I see that as an advantage.”
There’s no denying that teaching staff have faced a grueling few years educating students during Covid, and there’s growing anger over the north-south divide, with this year’s results showing growing regional disparities in grades superiors
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The city academy is located in an area with high levels of deprivation – half of the school’s pupils receive free school meals – but Bakewell said staff had worked hard to ensure pupils were not disadvantaged .
“I’m an inner-city headteacher and I will always say that the government needs to do more to support our disadvantaged children, no matter what region it’s in,” she said.
“We’ve done great work with all of our kids around their mental health and resilience. Also, all of our kids who needed it have had individual work in core subjects. We had graduate coaches to support, we had tailored intervention sessions, during and during the school day, we did a lot of extra things for our young people.”
“I have to applaud the teachers. Congratulations to them because this wouldn’t have happened without them,” said Charles, who was particularly pleased to pass maths, which he struggled with.
“I’m very happy. Maths was the one that scared me but I did it, I’ve come a long way. My family will go to the moon.”