‘How can I fail exams I never took?’

STAYING POSITIVE: Josie Litten

Times are strange for many young people - having significant birthdays in quarantine and being victim of the A-levels results fiasco. Here, Josie Litten describes her experience of both

Turning 18 in quarantine definitely felt like less of a milestone.

I had imagined myself on a night out with all my friends, carefree and happy to be finally legal. My wings had most definitely been clipped.

As my birthday was in May, we were still enduring the stricter period of lockdown. I was determined to make the most of it, still, and I celebrated by having a day full of drinking, my favourite meals, presents, and a socially distanced cocktail with my friends in the garden.

It was comforting that all my friends also turned 18 during this time too, which only highlights the need for there to be at least 10 nights out celebrating all our birthdays collectively once things are back to normal.

As well as becoming a grown up, I got my results for what I had been working towards for the last two years of my life - A-levels. When I think of my A-level results day, the word anticlimactic springs to mind.

For the majority of 18-year-olds, this day would have been a hugely important moment. However, it felt disappointing receiving grades that were, ultimately, not mine. Personally, I felt lucky. Having received an unconditional offer from university to study a course that excited me, my results wouldn’t define the next steps of my life too much.

On the other hand, there were young people all over the country who would not have made it into their dream university. A degree is essential to so many professions and it was heartbreaking to think that hundreds of thousands of people were being robbed of their futures.

‘IT WAS HEARTBREAKING TO THINK SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE HAD BEEN ROBBED OF THEIR FUTURES’: Josie Litten. Picture by Tom Arran

Throughout quarantine, my college in Hull updated me with everything they knew about how results would be determined. Initially, as we moved to remote and online working, it was expected that our work throughout the two years of studying would be used as evidence; though after seeing the anger over exam grades in Scotland, it seemed likely that we would suffer the same fate.

I had always pictured results day as being an exciting, buzzing celebration of my achievements. Instead, it was a “socially-distanced”, uneventful few minutes where I quickly grabbed my dreaded brown envelope and headed back outside to my parents, who nervously awaited me.

I ended up getting CDE in history, English and law, despite being predicted Cs. Immediately, I felt disassociated with my so called “results”. How could I have failed exams that I had never sat?   

After the obvious disappointment of failing, I felt irritated. It seemed ludicrous that I had gone through two long and stressful years of studying all to have my final grades generated by somebody who had no idea of my character, work ethic or potential.

I witnessed a lot of friends devastated by this; some had not got into their first choice or insurance choice. I had a friend get BBB and not get into her first-choice university - she was predicted As. She spent all day on the phone to the university, in tears, not being able to get through (which seemed like the case with most universities).

‘Living through a pandemic as a young person is terrifying’

I believe that for a lot of people, it was the uncertainty that really upset them. Living through a global pandemic as a young person is already terrifying. You are faced with the challenge of figuring out what is happening around you as well as figuring out yourself. And to have your entire life put on pause at a critical moment in your life was the icing on the cake.

Many felt like they deserved a lot better; one friend received an E in maths despite never getting an E in her life. None of it made any sense. Luckily, the last few days has seen students fighting back against this appalling mishandling of our futures.

I was shocked after watching [Education Secretary] Gavin Williamson being interviewed by This Morning and seeing for myself the blatant lack of remorse he had for the people he’d affected. What he had described as “checks and balances” was actually a postcode lottery with students receiving unrepresentative grades.

Additionally, I found out that there was a clear disparity of students receiving higher grades between both the North and South and public and private schools. It was insulting that the Education Secretary did not think students would notice that their unjust grades had been decided on their behalf by a classist algorithm. Not to mention the disrespect towards an entire teaching profession, as they had been deemed too untrustworthy to decide their own students grades themselves.

Thankfully, the U-turn we had all hoped for was made a couple of days later. We received our “Centre Assessed Grades”, which were the initial grades that our teachers had come up with for every student. This had been based on mocks, previous performance and attendance, and seemed overall a much fairer system.

‘Students fought back and forced a U-turn. We have more power than we realise’

I still hope students remember how we were treated during this time when it comes to voting for governments that treat everybody equally. I also hope that every student who finally got what they more or less deserved remembers that it was because of our retaliation towards those in charge. Protesting outside Parliament, outrage on social media; it all added up in a way that was, evidently, impossible to ignore. In a way, it may benefit our generation as it can serve as a lesson that we do hold more power than we realise.

Overall, my experience of A-levels during this time has been a mostly frustrating one. I can’t help feeling like the last two years have been a complete waste of time; A-levels are incredibly consuming and often have debilitating effects on the mental health of students, all to receive grades for exams we didn’t even get the chance to take.

Despite this, I’m looking on the positive side and the fact that I’m going to university in Leeds to study fashion marketing next September feels like an achievement in itself. Clearly I am not yet put off by academia; however I’m relieved to be moving away, starting afresh and following something that I feel passionately about.