Congratulations to all of our students, it was lovely to welcome back many of our students this morning to DHSB whilst maintaining all of the safety measures needed due to Covid-19.
Our staff wanted to be here today to celebrate and support them face to face with their next steps.
This has been an extremely challenging year for all of us, particularly our Year 13 students who have worked extremely hard for many years with such great determination, dedication and commitment to their studies culminating in a unusual and unique results day.
Although this 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. It is also important to recognise the turbulent conditions that have created such uncertainty and anxiety for our students including the last minute changes and lack of clarity from the government. As a school we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure that our students get a fair set of results and the best chance of progressing to their desired next steps.
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 centre assessed grades as a replacement for the normal examinations.
Ms Davidson, Assistant Head Post-16 said, "Everyone has a responsibility to play in ensuring that today's culmination of a young person’s hard work and effort is marked as merely a stepping stone in their journey to independence and adulthood and is not marked as a ‘discretely’ important event in bringing this about. Through lockdown and school closures, our leavers have shown their resilience and adaptability, qualities after all, that we need in a 21st century society. We are hopeful as ever, that our school leavers have their efforts recognised through their achievements but more importantly through the references shared with employers and Higher Education admission tutors as well as the skills, character and optimistic outlook our young people bring to academia or the world of work".
Ms Davidson added, "Congratulations and our warmest wishes go with all of our leavers this summer as much if not more than ever before and thanks to all in our school community for supporting our students throughout the challenges of farewells and ‘next step planning’ through lockdown".
It is important to note the difference between centre assessed grades and normal examinations:
Schools were asked to make their best assessment of what grade the student would be most likely to receive and to place candidates in rank order. The purpose of this ranking was to allow adjustments to take place to ensure the distribution of grades at a national level that was similar to previous years.
There was certain to be some mismatch between centre-assessed grades and the final grades awarded by exam boards to ensure consistency in grade distribution between years, and this was recognised in the process that was used.
This is a process that has never been attempted before and was forced by circumstances which nobody could possibly have foreseen. The staff at DHSB have worked diligently to provide grades for students and to place them in rank order as fairly and accurately as possible and to best support our students.
Our teachers know our students well and we were able to assess grades with a high degree of accuracy.
I would also like to convey my sincerest thanks to our parents and carers who have provided tremendous support to their son/daughter 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 the majority are progressing to their next exciting adventures.
We wish all of our Year 13 students every success with their next steps and we look forward to hearing from them in the future in how they are getting on.
Good luck!
For more details on how grades were finalised you can view and read this guidance.