Bootham head speaks of his pride at students achievements after ‘the most extraordinary and challenging few months.’

Chris Jeffery, Headmaster of Bootham School, spoke about his pride in the achievements this year’s A-Level cohort, both academic and personal.

“This is not a year for schools to be bandying around their exam statistics as these, by very definition, have to be in line with previous years’ performance and thus can’t always reflect the performance or ability of these individual students. Today is also not the right time to be decrying or defending the system that has led to the results that have been given to students today.

It is, however, a day for us to be celebrating all the achievements that our wonderful students take with them from their time at Bootham; to marvel at the resilience they have shown in coming through -and growing through- the most extraordinary and challenging few months that education has known for very many years; and to rejoice that the overwhelming majority of them have gained places on a chosen university course. Well done to ALL of them: we couldn’t be more proud, or more confident that the world will be a better place as we send them out them into it as fine young adults!

I was delighted (but not that surprised) by how so very many of this group remained really engaged in their learning over the whole of last term, even after their exams had been scrapped, as well as by the quality of some of the work they produced through a scheme we devised in-house in preparation for university study. By valuing learning and keeping at it, they will be really well set to commence their degree studies or other ‘next steps’ over coming months.

Our congratulations to them today -and our celebration of them today- are not diminished or dampened by the situation they find themselves in, but actually enhanced by it. I truly hope that our students will feel some of that for themselves, too. They all deserve to.

It is vital also to pay tribute to my extraordinary colleagues, who have put so much effort and passion not just into supporting the studies of these young people over the whole course, but most especially over the past five months. They have worked incredibly hard to provide our students with meaningful work during lockdown. They have also poured hours of care, analysis and discussion into negotiating the Centre Assessed Grades system, ensuring integrity in balancing realism and

justifiable optimism to come up with valid grades. I know how much they are loved and appreciated by their students; they deserve to be.”