A-level results: it's a family affair
Roberta, Helena & Tabitha Georghiou
Location: Bury
Case Study: Bury Grammar School
Waiting for A-level results is hard enough for any student, but when your mother is also your head teacher it brings complications that can only add to the pressure.
As A-level students prepare for the high stakes results, the Georghiou family shares their thoughts on what has become an August ritual.
Roberta Georghiou, 52
“A-levels have been part of my life every summer since 1981 when I awaited the results of my first A-level teaching group. When Tabitha, my younger daughter, took A-levels last year, I was in the difficult position of being both her mum and her headmistress. I believe the student has the right to know her results first and disliked having to see them when they arrived in school the day before, but there was nothing we could do about it.
It doesn’t make it any easier when you see headlines in the news saying A-levels have got easier. They haven’t. They’re just different. My daughter at 18 knows a lot more than I did, and has done a lot more than I had, at the same age. In the run-up to results they need all the support you can give them, but on the day it’s important for parents to take a bit of a back seat. The young person needs to be put in charge, but that’s not to say you don’t love them and care for them and will be giving them a hug and brewing the tea.
The advice I give my parents, which I find almost impossible to observe myself, is not to treat exam results as the be all and end all. Your child will be fine. She may not have quite the grades she wanted but she still has all the skills and attributes. The grade is just a paper endorsement of what they have achieved. It can seem like a disaster on the day if you drop from a predicted A to a B or from a B to a C and students have to be reminded that these are still very good grades that a lot of people would be very glad to have.
If you make sure they have prepared themselves for all eventualities they won’t panic so much if they do miss their place. The student should make the calls to the university to see if their place will be confirmed or to seek alternative courses. Telephoning or emailing the university yourself is not necessarily going to help and may actually hinder because universities expect their future students to be able to stand on their own feet.
It may be that your child will want to challenge the result, in which case she should get in touch with her teachers and see what they think. The request has to come from the school and I would certainly recommend it when the teacher doesn’t understand the mark, or the grade is way off estimate. It has to be done quickly and I can’t think of an example at this school where a university has failed to honour a place when there has been a marking error.
Ultimately, the choice is theirs, but you can help them to think through the reasons they applied for a course and identify the things that are important to them. They will probably find other courses which meet all the same criteria. My advice is to be your child’s keenest supporter on the day, enable them, but don’t try to do it for them.”
Tabitha Georghiou, 18 – speaking before receiving her results last year…
“I’m very nervous and just trying to put it out of my mind. The awful thing is that on the day before the results I won’t be able to speak to my own mother because she’s my head teacher. It’s really horrible because your mum understands you best and she’s the one you want to be with when you’re in a state of panic. I’ve got to move out to a friend’s house and I won’t even be able to speak to my mother on the telephone because she knows I’d be trying to decipher my results from her voice. If she was too nice to me I would know I’d done badly. I’ve taken English, history and government and politics; I’ve got to get three As to get into King’s College for law, which is a tall order but I like a challenge.
Taking exams is like jumping through hoops; meeting assessment objectives and making sure you get in the exact words to get marks under each of the criteria. If I don’t get the grades I’ve got a total back-up plan. I either go to King’s with three As or, if I don’t do so well, I’ll spend the year travelling and helping at the St Michael’s Children of the Rainbow orphanage in Malindi, Kenya where I went last summer. It was such a life-changing experience to see how lucky we are and how something so little can change someone’s life.
I’ll probably apply for a different course, perhaps politics because in my opinion, there is no point in doing law if I’m not one of the best.
My mum’s a teacher and my father’s a university lecturer but they’ve never been pushy parents. I push myself, really. I just want to make them proud of me.”
Helena Georghiou, 22
“I’ve just graduated from Nottingham with a 2:1 in English and French so I’ve got results over with, unlike Tabby. For me, exams were a bit of a rollercoaster.
My GCSE results were really good, so the next year I assumed I would do quite well at AS but I’d got a bit lazy and I didn’t do brilliantly. I was really upset at the time and was a bit worried about telling mum, but she has always been really supportive and she said that they were still good results, although she knew I was disappointed. She was disappointed for me, not herself and it was good that it happened because I hadn’t put in much effort and it meant I worked a lot harder in the second year.
Of course, mum was at work on A-level results day, and she was so busy I couldn’t get hold of her until nearly 11 o’clock. I got AAA and a B in Spanish. I remember the relief. ‘Nottingham here I come!’ Tabby is trying hard not to think about it and I feel for her because I know how much it means to her. But I’m confident she will do alright. My advice to people waiting for results is to keep as busy as possible and try not to dwell on it. If you don’t get what you needed on the day then put it behind you as quickly as possible, decide what you want, and go out and get it.”
Roberta Georghiou , recalling how it all turned out . . .
I received the school’s A level results the day before as I knew I would. It was exactly as I feared: Tabitha had a B grade in history. She had not achieved her offer for either her first or second choice of university both of which were requiring three A grades. As we had planned, there was no contact between us. I had to wait for her to come into school the next day.
Outwardly smiling and cheerful, I must admit I spent the next 18 hours or so a very worried mum. The possible strategies I considered were re-mark for the history (unlikely I thought but worth a try); clearing (also unlikely for Law) but still worth a try; contacting all of her original choices as she had had offers from all and there was a chance that they might consider her if they had their final numbers wrong and then there was Tabitha’s own route: the gap year. In each case I would have made Tabitha do the work herself – not simply because I would be very busy on results day myself and other girls and their parents would need me but because I knew that she would need to be very active on her own behalf to cope with the disappointment.
I did not sleep much that night. There are few things harder than anticipating your daughter’s misery especially after all the hard work. Just after 7.30 I received the call: ‘Mum, I am in! I have an offer from King’s. I am going to London! I am going to do Law. I am so happy!’
And after that nothing much seemed to matter after all. She was a little upset about history (and the re-mark later confirmed the B) but she was full of plans about accommodation, essential purchases and even the reading list. The euphoria never left her until mid September as we headed down the motorway and reached Watford Gap and she turned to me and said: ‘Why did you make me go to London? I don’t want to go.’
Like every wise parent I took no notice at all. Yes, there were tears when I left her at her hall of residence but since then she has loved every minute. She has just completed her first year exams with a 2:1 had a full social life, been on a law work experience (Projects Abroad) to Ghana and can’t wait to get back to King’s for the second year.
I think she owed a lot to her girls’ school. She had so much in her UCAS statement including strong work experience and lots of extra curricular activities. She had team work and leadership skills and had also been a member of a team winning a Greater Manchester law competition. King’s had required three A grades. Tabitha achieved AAB plus two AS levels: A in general studies and B in maths. It turned out to be enough.
A version of this article first appeared in the Independent on Sunday 10th August 2008
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It’s clear that a girls’ school gives pupils so much more than good exam grades.