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CAG gave higher overall grades than normal because every year some kids screw up their exams on the day.
The difference is that those kids tend to know it. I was one 28 yrs ago. 9 A's at GCSE, 4 A's in lower 6th (1st child in history of school to do 4 A levels)
The difference is that those kids tend to know it. I was one 28 yrs ago. 9 A's at GCSE, 4 A's in lower 6th (1st child in history of school to do 4 A levels)
Then my Dad got ill. I discovered depression and alcohol. I stopped going to lessons, avoided the few teachers who tried to help and generally screwed up my life.
I got A,B,C,D (& a distinction in French oral despite, or maybe because, I'd drunk 2 pints of Becks just before)
I got A,B,C,D (& a distinction in French oral despite, or maybe because, I'd drunk 2 pints of Becks just before)
My future was ruined. Instead of going off to Oxford to study law I went off to Leicester to work in a diner with a very unsuitable boyfriend. Wasted the ÂŁ12k inheritance I had (from my mother's death when I was 2) in a year. It took me a while to get back on my feet
But 4 years later I was sober, functioningly sane and earning 30k a year in a city career I'd talked my way into via a guy I met in a bar.
I was able to do so because I still had hope. I still had agency. I'd screwed things up. Which meant I could fix things.
I was able to do so because I still had hope. I still had agency. I'd screwed things up. Which meant I could fix things.
This year, thousands of kids haven't screwed up. They have *been* screwed up. By an algorithm. By living in the wrong postcode. By going to the wrong school.
This is on top of dealing with the world changing at a formative time in their lives. Of the world being screwed up
This is on top of dealing with the world changing at a formative time in their lives. Of the world being screwed up
The real legacy of this isn't the missed Uni places, the bad A level grades, the changed plans. It's the denial of agency and the extinguishing of hope.
It's the kids who struggled just giving up their struggle - because why bother when their hard work has been ignored.
It's the kids who struggled just giving up their struggle - because why bother when their hard work has been ignored.
It's the kids who had dreams of getting out of poverty, deprived neighbourhoods and class based oppression seeing their dreams dashed and not daring to dream anymore.
It's the kids who wanted to make the world a better place accepting that their world will always be shit.
It's the kids who wanted to make the world a better place accepting that their world will always be shit.
That's the real legacy of this fiasco. That's what this govt has just done to thousands of kids by taking away any semblance of control they had over their own destinies. They've destroyed that tiny flicker of hope still burning in these kids after all they had been through.
But what they've also done is fanned fierce flames of anger in so many people.
My daughter got her Uni place. Some of her friends weren't so lucky.
She has my badass genes and hatred of injustice, her father's drive, and is about to learn how to be a weapons engineer...
My daughter got her Uni place. Some of her friends weren't so lucky.
She has my badass genes and hatred of injustice, her father's drive, and is about to learn how to be a weapons engineer...
