tears of joy on GCse results day
THE long wait for thousands of teenagers across Greater Manchester was finally over as they collected their grades on GCSE Results Day.
There were tears of joy at schools across the region as students opened those all important envelopes – with more than a few impressive performances.
Teachers and pupils had previously voiced concern over the new, ‘tougher’-style exams in English and maths.
Government reforms have seen the introduction of a new system where thw two subjects are graded from one, the lowest, to nine, the highest. Nationally, the overall pass rate dipped across a number of subjects. The English literature pass rate fell 2.5 percentage points to 72pc, but in maths it rose from 61.5pc to 68.pc. Both are the new, tougher exams.
Despite the challenges presented by the reforms, scores of pupils were jumping for joy with their results in Greater Manchester. Among those celebrating was Manchester Academy pupil Ronan Timircan, who got a nine in English language. His pals Amayna Solaiman and Mojdah Waliezada both got nines in English literature. Emily Cavanagh, from Norden in Rochdale, was the only pupil at Oulder Hill Community School pupil to get two grade nines in the new, tougher maths and English GCSE exams.
The 15-year-old shed tears of joy as she opened her results, bagging two nines, five A*s and four As.
Anoushka Mazumdar, who attends Manchester High School Girls, was one of only nine students in the country to achieve full marks in further maths out of 19,000 entrants.