‘My heart is beating fast, I’m ecstatic’

A-LEVEL students were over the moon yesterday.

Many had been taking part in a protest outside the Department for Education in central London when the news came through.

“My heart is beating so fast,” said student Alaa Muhammad, who had faced missing out on her dream of studying medicine.

“I am ecstatic, I am so so happy. I was so hopeless a couple of days ago and now I feel like I can finally breathe again.”

Alaa had seen her grades fall from a predicted ABB to EDD. She had posted an emotional plea on Twitter to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson asking why he had ruined her life, saying she did not feel like living any more.

Rubbish

Jess Johnson, 18, last year won an Orwell Youth Prize for a piece of dystopian fiction about an algorithm that sorted students into bands based on class.

When she received her results she faced losing out on a £16,000 scholarship and believed she had “fallen into my own story”.

She will now get the A she needed in English to fulfil the terms of her initial offer.

Thomas Jukes, 18, of Birmingham, who had missed out on a place to study medicine, questioned why the “rubbish algorithm” was used in the first place.“It’s just dependent now on whether my places have been held,” he said.

Fawad Sajid, 18, of Kingsbury, north-west London, said: “I still feel there needs to be a process in which students can appeal against their teachers’ assessed grades.”

Glen Morgan-Shaw, 18, of Mitcham, southwest London, called on Mr Williamson to resign.