Being 18 isn’t easy at the best of times. But this cohort of school leavers have encountered more turbulent times than most, which is why today’s A-level results are such a pleasant surprise – even to those of us in education. These students have had their most crucial school years overshadowed by Covid, catastrophic cuts and a cost of living crisis so devastating that countless families have been plunged into destitution. Under these conditions, it’s nothing short of remarkable that more than a quarter of this year’s grades in England were A* or A and that 76% of 18-year-olds have been accepted into their first choice of university.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we should not take these results as sign of an education system that is rapidly improving, or a state that has gone above and beyond for our young people. These students have had their childhoods defined by austerity-era destruction and are entering adulthood under a new government that seems as committed to harsh economic policies as the last. Their achievement today is in spite of politicians and their decisions. It is testimony to the hard work of overstretched and underpaid teachers, schools plugging gaps where the state has failed and a generation of young people who are taking academic success more seriously than ever because they see it as their only route to prosperity in a country on its knees.
