East Sussex College youngsters celebrate ‘outstanding’ A-level results

East Sussex College students are celebrating receiving their A-Level results today (Tuesday, August 10) after a challenging year of lockdown and uncertainty.

The youngsters’ results are based on Teacher Assessed Grades for the second year, rather than exams.

An East Sussex College spokeperson said there were some outstanding results across the three campuses in Eastbourne, Hastings and Lewes, with nearly three quarters of A-Level courses achieving a full 100 per cent pass rate.

These included challenging academic subjects, Biology, Computer Science, French, Philosophy and Physics. Furthermore, a fantastic 76% of these students achieved an A*-C grade.

“I’m really overjoyed,” said Maia Woolf, who achieved an impressive four A* grades in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Music and has her sights set on Cambridge or Warwick.

Maia said, “It’s been really crazy and quite demotivating a lot of the time because of the COVID pandemic. I’m so thankful for the amazing effort all my teachers put in to make sure we could have the best education, but it has been really challenging to do so much online, especially in practical subjects.

“In fact, it was more meaningful this year, as it meant my tutors believed that I was working at that grade, even when I wasn’t quite sure that I was.

“We didn’t hear until earlier this year that exams were cancelled, and this did cause some concerns, as some students might have wished that they’d had more opportunity earlier on to focus on the mock exams.

“But it has been a really rigorous process. I think we’ve done more assessments in class, than had we sat actual exams, so I trust the process.”

Eastbourne’s William Jukes achieved A* grades in Accounting, Business and Maths; while Tigerlily Young was another high achiever, gaining three A* grades in English Language, English Literature and History.

Nathan Newnham, who was a Student Council Rep during his time at ESC, achieved three A* grades in his subjects: Biology, Psychology and Law.

Rebecca Conroy, CEO and principal of East Sussex College, said, “We are incredibly proud of all of our students, who are celebrating some fantastic results after an incredibly challenging two years.

“They have all demonstrated such resilience and determination, which is why they have gone on to succeed.”