Kate Bohdanowicz

It’s 23 years (and one day) since I got my A Level results. I was returning from a month’s Inter-railing when they came out. Because my cohort was the first year to do GCSEs, the A Level results two years later were big news. I remember watching TV on the ferry from Calais and seeing all the hoopla. By the time I got to Dover, the holiday high had been replaced with an anxious pre-exam result low.

I had to wait until the next day to get mine and I opened them sitting on the pavement. I did OK. Well I did poorly in Biology (I got a D: apparently missing the golden C by a fraction) but I got two Bs in English and Sociology and went on my gap year, went to uni and got a job. No-one in journalism ever asked about my qualifications. You were just put on a story to see what you came up with.

A friend of mine is from Manchester. He recalls the club-of-the-day the Hacienda, offering free entry to anyone who failed their A Levels and there were queues round the block. That friend passed his, got into Uni (Oxford no less) got kicked out, spent five years on the dole and is now a big journalism success with a book deal (git). Another person I know, left Cambridge with flying colours, spent 10 years driving vans and now sells insurance.

Today, I woke up early feeling anxious. The students I taught in my PGCE year were expecting their results. I accessed them electronically so never saw any of them face to face. What can I say? There’ll be a smattering of happy faces but I know some will be disappointed. The vast majority want to go to university and yet, with fees so high, I’m not sure it’s for everyone. I hope a fair few who didn’t do as well as hoped, take a moment to think about what they really want to do before they rush to clearing to get on any old course in any old subject at any old university.

I’m not saying qualifications don’t matter. They do – to an extent. I couldn’t have trained as a teacher without Maths and English GCSE. It’s just they’re not the end of the world. I spent a long time agonising over the C grade in Biology I very nearly got. BBC rather than BBD would have given me access to more university courses so I would have probably studied elsewhere and gone on a different path. But then I’m philosophical about being cheated out of those crucial points. Remember kids, when you get to my age, you can’t remember what you did this morning, let alone what A Level results you got. Don’t worry too much.