Freya, 18, tears open the crisp white envelope in her hands. She pauses. Then beams as she realises she has the grades required to study English literature at Cardiff university.
Like many teenagers across the country, Freya, one of 42 A-level students at Abbeywood community school in Bristol, has been waiting anxiously for her results after two years of intense study.
“I did really well,” she says. “I did better than I expected. I got ABB in geography, biology and English literature.” Freya says she felt scared on Thursday morning as she walked the long familiar path to her sixth-form centre.
Emily Norris, the outgoing headgirl, scans the slips of paper with her grades printed on. “I got straight Cs” she says. “I knew I had got into university last night, but I just found out my results.” Norris will be studying human geography at Portsmouth. “I’m looking forward to leaving home and starting something new. But it’s weird, it doesn’t feel like I’ve left school yet.”
Abbeywood, a comprehensive with nearly 900 students, has transformed in a short space of time. The school, inspected and placed in special measures in 2011, came under new leadership and became a sponsored academy as part of the Olympus trust two years later. By 2014, the school had improved according to inspectors and was rated as “good” in all areas by Ofsted and the most improved school in South Gloucestershire.
Dave Baker, the executive headteacher, says many of the pupils will be the first in their families to go to university. “That is aspiration – going off to universities in other cities. No one has got straight A*s here. But the story here is that they got into university and have done brilliantly because their starting point is different.”
Much has changed at the school, with its glass exterior flanked by green courts and surrounded by trees. According to Ofsted, the “dynamic shared leadership team has effectively tackled underachievement and improved the quality of teaching and learning”.
Baker, who oversees all the schools in the Olympus academy trust, says he was realistic about the forthcoming challenges: “With the changes to A-levels and with AS-levels getting harder we have to look at what we offer students, and if they are on the right pathway to be successful.” He says he is kept awake at night by reductions in funding and that it “feels like [education is being] cut to the bone”.
Many students were off to celebrate, as they left their sixth-form centre for the last time. Some, however, spoke anxiously on phones or searched online for a university course through the clearing system.
Gemma Shafto, director of post-16 education at the school, has been there since early morning. “I don’t let anybody leave unless they’ve got something,” she says, explaining that many students have gone on to apprenticeships at organisations such as the Ministry of Defence, Rolls-Royce and other technology companies in the area.
Business studies and the arts are popular among 18-year-olds at the school. However, those who are keen on other vocations, such as engineering and technology, are able to transfer or share the facilities with the colleges next door.
George Stephens, 18, received a distinction in business A-level and is looking forward to getting an apprenticeship. “When I got the envelope in my hand I just wanted to get it open. I can relax now,” he says.
