Students and staff enjoyed a socially distanced catch up as Year 11 students collected their GCSE results on Thursday.

College Principal, Alan Salt said: “We so pleased to see our Year 11s again after so many months”

“As always, staff have wanted to be here to celebrate our students’ amazing achievements, and to make sure they get the best support”

He continued: “There are so many stories behind each and every grade; students who have worked so hard over such a long period, students who have excelled at the very highest level, and some who have overcome real difficulties to get where they are today”.

This year the COVID-19 lockdown meant exams were not sat, with instead teachers meeting to decide on Centre Assessed Grades reflecting what students would have achieved.

Mr Salt added:“As with all schools I know of, we took this responsibility very seriously”

The College are certain this was a robust process which lead to realistic results that reflected the hard work students and teachers have put in.

“Every single grade was discussed by a group of teachers and this process was repeated at least twice and in some cases three times. Then we had moderation by Heads of Faculty, and further moderation by the Senior Leadership team before I signed off every grade”.

Staff at the College welcomed the Government’s change of position to not downgrade GCSE results and use Centre Assessed Grades instead following outcry around A-level results that came out last week.

Mr Salt said:“It has certainly been a stressful and frustrating time for staff and students and we are glad the right decision has, belatedly, been made.”

“We all know how difficult the lockdown has made things, but we are at a loss at how the Department for Education and OFQAL didn’t resolve these problems earlier, having had school results since June”.