Time to celebrate a lot of hard work

Much like the pride we have all felt over the last few weeks for our Olympic athletes, we were all rooting for our fantastic A-level students. Hundreds of students opened their results in anticipation last Thursday to find out if their hard work had paid off.

A-levels are, for many, the building block towards obtaining a place at their desired university.

For some, the partying has been taking place all week, but for others, this week will have been a stressful time as they start the UCAS Clearing process in quest of the next best option at another university with space for them.

A-levels have for the last few years been getting harder, with fewer students nationally achieving top grades.

Figures show that in the UK, students offered A* and A grades dropped from 25.9% in 2015 to 25.8% this year.

With mounting pressure to do well, we must remember that university is not for everyone and success can be measured in many other ways.

With internships and traineeships becoming more and more popular, the loans and debt that university brings can make it less attractive to some.

Regardless of their next steps and their results, we hope all of our A-level students have all gone out and celebrated their hard work over the last couple of years.