Today we are celebrating the incredible achievements of our young people after 5 years of brilliance. It has been a fantastic morning with all attending in high spirits that even the drizzle hasn't dampened. We have really enjoyed welcoming back many of our students this morning to DHSB to congratulate them together with their friends and family and help them move on to their exciting next steps.

Students celebrating their results before beginning their enrollment

This has been an extremely challenging year for all of us, particularly our Year 11 students who have worked extremely hard for many years with such great determination, dedication and commitment to their studies culminating in this results day.

Although it is a unique results day, it does not take away the achievements of our wonderful students, they have worked incredibly hard to achieve these results and they deserve the recognition and rewards to progress to their next steps, they have also had to show great resilience and courage during the unusual end to Year 11 and facing the uncertainty and turmoil of a unstable build up to receiving their results.

I would like to convey my sincerest thanks to all of the staff who have worked tirelessly over the years to support our students, with particular note to the meticulous and robust nature of the way they have had to determine the teacher assessed grades as a replacement for the normal examinations and recognising the significant workload and emotional pressure this has put on them during the pandemic. I am extremely proud of working alongside our staff they are simply amazing.

It is also important that we all understand and recognise the difference between centre assessed grades and normal examinations:

Grades this summer are based on Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs). TAGs were submitted to the exam boards by the school as a holistic assessment of students’ performance in a subject, following a rigorous process of assessment, moderation and quality assurance.

These grades were then approved by the relevant exam board, following external quality assurance checks.

In some cases, the TAGs we submitted may have been reviewed by the exam board, who may have asked us to submit an alternative grade. However, any changes to the grades we submitted were done by professional teachers or reviewers; this year no grades have been changed as a result of an algorithm.

I would also like to convey my sincerest thanks to our parents and carers who have provided relentless support to their child over the years and in particular have had to guide them through a extremely challenging time during the last few months, together with the fantastic efforts of our young people they are celebrating an excellent set of results and most importantly are progressing to their next exciting adventures.

Staff are spending the rest of the day with our students to finalise their next steps by enrolling them into our Sixth Form, finalising apprenticeships or other courses in further education. We wish all our Year 11 students every success with their next steps and we look forward to welcoming many of them back in September.

Rufus celebrating his excellent results with his mum, Mrs Davidson and Mr Adams

Good luck!

You can download the JCQ Guidance for students and parents here