Friends Nuha Islam and Azizah Abdul with their results at Haverstock School

TEENAGERS in Camden were celebrating as some sixth forms and colleges got their best ever haul of A-level grades, in the first time full exams have been sat for three years.

For many it was the first official national exams they had sat since their Sats in Year 6, after the current cohort’s GCSEs in 2020 were derailed by the Covid pandemic and lockdowns which closed schools. It meant the first year of their A-levels was also disrupted.

Some schools, including Haverstock School and Camden School for Girls registered their highest ever average grades and marks – despite claims in the last two years of grade inflation nationally after marks were awarded by teachers without pupils sitting national exams.

Borough-wide the amount of pupils getting three A* to E grades fell compared to last year, with 85 per cent passing their exams compared to 90 per cent in 2021.

Nationally the number of top grades has fallen, but the percentage is higher than 2019. The number of university admissions has neared a record.

Headteachers acknowledged that pupils had faced unprecedented challenges. Matt Sadler, headteacher at Hampstead School said: “This cohort of students has been through so much and this summer faced up to public examinations for the first time in their secondary school career. To realise such high academic standards in this context is incredible, and we are so proud of their achievements.”

Among those celebrating their results at Haverstock was Shania Leurs, 18, who got two A*s in Politics and Sociology, and a B in English Language. She said she had not eaten on Thursday morning before coming to get her results, such was her nerves.

“If I had, I wouldn’t have kept it down,” she said. “I called my mum and she was more excited than I was. My younger brother cried. I’m really excited about my English grade because the best I had ever got before was a D.”

Shania Leurs

The Chalk Farm resident is off to study politics and international relations at the University of Birmingham. Talking about her interest in politics, she said: “Partygate, as much as it was interesting about its politics, it was all about the drama, like Oprah, just so good to keep following it every day.”

Nuha Islam, 18, who will study politics and business management at Queen Mary’s University said it had been difficult after disruption to previous exams.

“I think it has been really hard for all of us. It has been hard because the last exams we sat were our Sats and then it’s nothing until our A-levels. We didn’t get that GCSE experience.”

READ MORE: HAVERSTOCK SCHOOL RECORDS BEST EVER A LEVEL RESULTS

The school posted historic results, with headteacher James Hadley saying the average grade was a B. Nearly 60 per cent of pupils got A* to B grades and 86 per cent got A to C, the best in the school’s history.

He said: “We’re incredibly proud of this group of students who had their GCSEs disrupted by the pandemic but have worked so hard and had the best results in the school’s history.”

Over in Somers Town, nervous pupils at Regent High School filtered through the airy atrium to collect their results from the canteen. One of those calling his parents to pass on good news was Jamil Choudhury.

Jamil Choudhury and Mariya Ahmed at Regent High School

Beaming, he told the New Journal he had got Bs in history and philosophy and a C in maths. However unlike some of his classmates, he has been put off going to university and is instead looking at an apprenticeship.

“When I was young, I always had aspirations to go to university. But as I got older, I found education less enjoyable. I saw the stress my sister went through at uni and I thought ‘nah I don’t need that,” he said.

READ MORE: TEARS OF JOY AS REGENT HIGH SCHOOL CELEBRATES A-LEVEL RESULTS

Deputy head teacher Josh Deery was pleased with the school’s results. The number of students getting A* to C grades rocketed from 50 per cent in 2019 to 85.7 per cent on Thursday. This was only a 3 per cent fall compared to teacher assessed grades last year.

“Under teacher assessed grades [TAGs], people would have said ‘Those grades have shot up at Regent High School, that must just be because of TAGs.’ But we’ve got the same results this year under exams. The jump happened because of years of hard work,” he said.

Students at Camden School for Girls saw their results smash previous records – bucking a national trend for lower grades.

Almost a third of pupils at the Sandall Road institute swept the board with straight As and A*, and all 20 pupils who applied for a place at Oxbridge got their required marks.

Headteacher Kateryna Law said this year’s cohort had been the most so far affected by Covid.  She said: “They were the year that did not sit their GCSEs. They suffered the most disruption of all, facing so much so much uncertainty over their exams.”

Ms Law added her school – a non-selective comprehensive – had matched the results of some of the most exclusive schools in the country.
She said: “26 students got straight A* – that’s a really high figure and comparable to selective and private school results. I am really proud of my students and my staff.”

Nearly a third of grades at Hampstead School (28 per cent) were A* or A grades, with more than three quarters (76 per cent) getting C or above.

Among pupils to get top marks was Finlay Sleeman, who got three A* grades and did a project on the impact of the Sino-Japanese War. He will go on to study Economic History at LSE.

The LaSWAP consortium, which provides A-levels for La Sante Union, William Ellis, Acland Burghley and Parliament Hill had 73 per cent of pupils getting A* to C grades. Those getting their grades included Ajmal Noormal, 19, who arrived from Afghanistan two years ago.

Afghan refugee Ajmal Noormal with his grades

He will now go to the University of Essex, on a full scholarship to study biomedical science.

He said: “I arrived in the UK from Afghanistan in March 2020. One of my older brothers was already here. I enrolled at Acland Burghley and LaSWAP in September. My level of English was very bad when I arrived – it has improved a lot now. I had also recently lost a friend in an explosion at our education centre in Kabul and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Fifty young people were killed, all my age, including a very close friend of mine. Six months later, I left the country and came to the UK.”

UCS pupils mark their results alongside headteacher Mark Beard. Top L-R: Leo Kraljevic, Ben Johnson, Leo Sassoon, Jonathan Shaw, Alia Ahmed. Bottom L-R: Lukas Jorgensen, David Verran, Raphael Freedman, Mark Beard, Anjali Cheung, Amelia Shaw, Amiran Antadze

Independent school UCS in Hampstead had 81 per cent of pupil’s grades being an A* or A, a fall on last year when teacher assessed grades had them at 88 per cent.

Headteacher Mark Beard said: “It is wonderful to be able to recognise the height of achievement these results represent for this particular cohort: this was the year group forced into the first lockdown in spring 2020, who sat no public exams at GCSE level that summer, and who endured two difficult years of sixth form education whilst the nation suffered the impact of the pandemic.”