GCSE results day: Saddleworth pupils make their mark
Date published: 23 August 2018
Joy at Saddleworth School this morning. Pictured are Thomas Doyle, Bridget Atkin, Eleanor Meek, Kirsten Fletcher, Archie Duncan, Lucy Duncan, Arjay Velasquez, Camden Griffiths, Jude Kehoe, Isabelle Kinsler, Katherine Atkins and Sam Smithies
Pupils at Saddleworth School were overjoyed as their brilliant GCSE results were revealed this morning.
The Uppermill-based school produced some excellent achievements in the face of new, harder examinations.
Kirsten Fletcher, who has ambitions to work in international relations, said: “I got four 9s and six 8s. I feel sick because I wasn’t expecting this.
"Because we didn’t know much about the new courses, I really didn’t know what to expect and it was all up in the air. I’m happy.”
Eleanor Meek achieved a stunning eight 9s (the highest possible grade) and one 8.
She said: “I am really shocked. I’ve done a lot better than I thought I had!”
The Chronicle also caught up with Saddleworth’s head boy Sam Smithies, whose impressive grades are keeping his career options open.
Sam said: “I am very happy. There’s a couple of things that I’d like to change, but overall everything that I needed to do A-levels I’ve got.
"I’m hoping I sort of discover things; I’m doing Physics, Chemistry and Maths so that’s already taking me down a certain route – probably engineering or something.
"I’d probably do a degree afterwards in a science and see where that took me.”
Unsurprisingly, Head Teacher Matthew Milburn was elated.
He said: “It’s always the most exciting day of the year – results day – because you see the joy in the children’s faces as they open those envelopes and they see where they’re going to go, what they’re going to do with their futures.
“We’re delighted that so many children have done so well and that they’re progressing onto their college of choice, or the apprenticeships, or the work that they wanted to move on to.”
Although all options are encouraged, the school sees most pupils heading into the direction of A-levels.
Mr Milburn added:: “The majority of our students will go on to study A-levels.
"There’s still a number of students that will also want to do vocational courses, but then there will be those that want to go into workplace learning.”
Either way, these kinds of results leave all doors open as pupils head on towards their next steps.
This year has seen the second set of changes to GCSE curriculum and assessment.
In addition to the changes in 2017 for English and Maths when they were made more challenging, similar changes in 2018 will affect 20 more subjects, and the remainder from 2019.
These subjects are all graded on a new scale of 9 to 1, with 9 the highest grade, rather than A* to G.
Simple comparison of 2018 GCSE results with previous years’ results is not possible.
These changes also affect the government Basics, Attainment 8, Progress 8 and Ebacc measures.
Progress comparison will be possible later this year when national level data is released.
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