Following the challenges of recent months and all the uproar regarding the A Level results, it is lovely to hear from St Dunstan’s College with good reason for celebration.
Our A Level results are amongst the strongest seen in recent years. We have the highest A* percentage on record, at 20%. Nearly half of all the grades awarded were either A or A* (49%) and 78% of grades were A* – B, both of which represent considerable uplift from last year.
The College is also delighted to confirm 20% of the cohort received straight A grades or higher, as well as 100% Oxbridge success and all three of our talented young artists achieving their first-choice Art Foundation Course.
At the time of writing, 78% of applicants have made it onto their first-choice higher education course, and we expect this to increase as the morning unfolds.
Speaking about today’s A Level results, St Dunstan’s Headmaster, Mr Nicholas Hewlett explained: ‘We have good reason for celebration this morning, with our A Level results amongst the strongest in recent years.
‘Yet, any sense of celebration this year must be tempered by both the disappointment that these students were not able to prove themselves in final examinations, and the reality that, in certain subject areas, exam boards decided to downgrade our Centre Assessment Grades. This downgrading has significantly disadvantaged certain departments and certain students. It is an injustice.
‘Our processes for finalising these grades were extraordinarily robust. Teachers spent many hours reviewing the plethora of internal data available to us to present the most accurate information possible on each and every student. And yet in some cases this was seemingly and arbitrarily ignored. We know the ability of these students and we believe we are more able to take a view on their likely outcomes than an Ofqual algorithm. For those students who have been affected in this way, we will now be doing everything in our power to support them through the next steps, as that hopefully becomes clearer in the coming days and weeks, and our thoughts are with them today.
‘And so I greet today with mixed emotions. Celebration and pride is marred by disappointment that an imperfect system has served mixed blessings to our school. Whilst the results are strong, had our professional judgement been fully trusted, they could have been even better, and some of our young people wouldn’t have been served an injustice today.’