With exams set to return in two month's time for SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels, students at one Nottingham school are said to be 'keen' for them to be back.
A strong set of GCSE grades is still expected at Djanogly City Academy despite exams taking over again from teacher assessments.
The upcoming set of exams will be the first that have been sat since 2019 across the UK because of the Covid pandemic, which has caused widespread disruption to learning.
Based on the latest set of GCSE data available from 2019, Djanogly City Academy had the highest progress 8 score in Nottingham city, which is a score to measure a student's progress from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school.
In 2019, 56 percent of Djanogly students achieved a grade 4 or above in English and Maths, compared to a Nottingham city average of 53 percent and a national average of 65 percent.
In the same year, 99 percent of students at Djanogly stayed in education or went into employment, compared to a Nottingham city average of 88 percent and a national average of 94 percent.
Over the course of the past two years, teacher-led assessments have been responsible for awarding students with their GCSE and A-Level grades.
In August 2020, Djaongly City Academy headteacher Andy Smith was confident the assessments for GCSEs at that school would be an 'accurate reflection' of how students were performing.
Schools have had to come up with unique ways to minimise the disruption to learning students have suffered because of lockdowns and not always being able to attend school in person.
Despite this, bosses at Djanogly City Academy, part of the Djanogly Learning Trust responsible for the academy, are confident of a strong set of results.
Liz Anderson, CEO of Djanogly Learning Trust, said: "For us staff, it's now back to business as usual and the students are keen to sit the exams, and I'm glad they are as it's their right of passage.
"We've been preparing for this, continuing with internal assessments with that information passed on to future teachers.
"Ofqual have recommended for students to sit two rounds of exams as a contingency, so they'll be ready.
"There's a positive feeling that this is our real chance to show how well we've done, this will be our moment to show off."
Mr Smith said: "We've been making use of assessment materials provided by the exam boards and the information giving us an idea of where we need to focus over the next period.
"We've had some information from exam boards on what elements will and won't be on the exam papers, with some giving more information than others.
"Now we're planning our last stages of revision ahead of the exams, and I'm confident of another really strong set of results.
"Where learning has been lost, one would hope this will be reflected in the way grade boundaries are determined."
Ms Anderson says the experiences students have missed out on has varied.
She said: "When younger students came back to our primary schools in the Trust, they had a greater learning loss, but after a week or so they bounced back.
"With the older students, their learning loss has been far less greater than the younger students, but the emotional fallout has been much worse.
"If you look at the academy, if students have lost two years learning, that's a third of what will be their entire time there.
"You can't rewind and cover absolutely everything, but we've been focusing on the essential areas that children need to know and will be asked about in their exams."
Mr Smith says Djanogly City Academy has done its best at maintaining momentum.
He said: "The pandemic has had a significant impact on everyone's mental health, and although some learning has undoubtedly been lost, we still delivered 30 live lessons every week.
"That had a positive impact at keeping momentum, and we've done low stake assessments so mental health is not impacted.
"We've had to be forensic in identifying where some of those gaps are."
To read all the biggest and best stories first sign up to read our newsletters here.
