A former Chichester student has told scholars not to be too concerned if they didn’t get the grades that they wanted. Thousands of students all over the country have today discovered their exam GSCE results and are now plotting their futures.
Since leaving school and college, Lucy Toone has gone on to start up a jewellery business which she has seen grow from strength to strength. And although she came out of education with good grades, she says that she refused to allow her exam results to play a part in determining her future.
Lucy, aged, 20, who attended Chichester’s Bishop Luffa School and then went on to study at Chichester College, looked at getting in to media and also had ambition is both arts and drama.
But she followed her passion to create items of beauty, and since launching TOMM Jewellery she hasn’t looked back. After initially making unique bracelets, rings, anklets and necklaces in silver, she has now branched in to gold. And her experiences post-exams mean she is in an ideal position to help put at ease those students who may be worried by their results.
She said:
“I went to Bishop Luffa school and didn’t let my GCSE results determine my future. I was always really creative in school and I studied art media and drama. I did okay with my results but I can see now that they don’t have to define you. Yes, of course, they can be extremely important especially depending on what profession or path you want to follow. But they aren’t the be all and end all and students who haven’t done perhaps as well as they might have, shouldn’t despair.”
“I grew up shopping in Chichester admiring all the boutique shops hoping one day to have my jewellery in them. And if we continue to progress as well as we are, then one day that will happen. in the meantime, the jewellery is sold online and at various events that we attend.”
Lucy’s comments come as over 700,000 teenagers are getting their GCSE results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and at a time when there have been reforms to the exams system in line with the first year of the Government’s tough new GCSE courses.
GCSEs have been toughened up under the exams overhaul, with students told to do less coursework, while all exams come at the end of the two-year courses, as opposed to throughout. And traditional A*-G grades have been axed and replaced with a 9-1 system, with 9 the top result.
Last week Students at Bishop Luffa Sixth Form were celebrating a record-breaking set of results — with more than 65 per cent of grades awarded at A*-B and an overall pass rate of 99.5 per cent.
