Results Day 2018

The night before results day was a nightmare. I couldn’t sleep, my friends were waking up from actual nightmares, and I realised this day ended a whole era of my life.

As someone who isn’t planning on going to a university I wasn’t as worried as some about getting certain grades. I knew my expectations for myself, and if I reached those goals then that was good enough for me. But as I reached the hall to get my results, I was shaking. I realised a whole two years of my life, all the hard work and tears, was coming down to a single piece of paper. It was crazy how much had happened in those two years, how much attention and hard work was put in into getting good grades. I’d witness people crash and burn, get bad grades in subjects they wanted to do when they went to university. I even got a bad grade myself, but not to my own fault. The Performing Arts department taught my class the wrong thing and we all ended up with us—UNGRADED. That was a shock in year 12 but in year 13 we did it right and I sweated my ass off to get better grades, to finally get a grade I thought I deserved. Little did I know that I would achieve the highest grade.

The morning beforehand had been a disaster for some friends, they hadn’t been accepted into the university they wanted. They were devastated and panicking, which only made me panic too because if they couldn’t get the grades they wanted then who was to say I wasn’t the same? A friend that was in my class hadn’t got the grades he needed and, as we usually got the same grades, it made me worry. What if the grade boundaries were high? What if I had messed everything up? When I held that envelope I had no idea what was going to be inside.

A group of my friends huddled together, envelopes in hand that would reveal all. I opened mine: Distinction* in Performing Arts, B in English Literature and Language and a B in media. Better grades than I expected. I was thrilled to say the least. I honestly couldn’t believe how well I had done and, although it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to uni, I felt such a relief seeing such good grades. I had worked so hard for those two years that I knew it had really paid off. Within those two years, my grades ranged from a C to an A* and I couldn’t believe my success rate. I started finding a revision path that worked for me and I even created a study account on Instagram (which is now called @bujopositivity) and everything seemed to work out in the end!!

My friends—well they were just thrilled with their results. One friend even sobbed as she saw how well she had done. I am so proud of all of them and I cannot believe that they’ll all be at university soon, kicking their degrees’ ass and having an amazing time. It’ll be sad to see everyone go but I know that the ones who really matter will keep in contact.

Sixth form really was a wild ride. There was drama and tears and bitchiness but there were also new loves, laughter, and a whole lot of fun. No matter what, we will always have the happiness that was results day.

And to those of you who didn’t get the grades you wanted: keep your chins held high, keep working, stay strong, and even stay in school another year if you need to. It will all work out eventually. I wish everyone the best of luck.

Well done to all.