\n<\/p>\n
M<\/span>ia Headington found out she had dyslexia the day before her first GCSE exam, but the diagnosis didn\u2019t faze her. Opening her results envelope on Thursday morning, the 16-year-old found out she had done much better than in her mock exams, achieving five A*s, an A, two Bs and a C.<\/p>\n \u201cI am chuffed,\u201d the Maesteg school pupil said. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect to do this well, although I\u2019m going to resit the C in English Language. The essays were difficult. Now I know why!\u201d<\/p>\n Mia said she would stay on at the sixth form at Maesteg school in south Wales\u2019s Llynfi valley, and wants to go on to study dentistry at university.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so proud of her,\u201d said her mother, Allison, wiping away tears. \u201cShe was at school at 7.30am every day preparing coursework and revising \u2026 She arrived before the teachers sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Despite finding out she has dyslexia the night before her first exam, Mia Headington aced her GCSEs.<\/span> Photograph: Francesca Jones\/The Guardian<\/p>\n About 180 Maesteg pupils arrived to pick up their GCSE results over the course of Thursday morning. Last week\u2019s A-level results were the school\u2019s best ever: GCSE attainment was not quite as high as expected, but the school had still \u201cheld its own\u201d, said the headteacher, Helen Jones. In Wales and Northern Ireland, GCSEs are still graded using letters A* to G, while England uses numbers 9-1.<\/p>\n Across Wales, GCSE grades were slightly up on last year, with 62.5% of pupils achieving A* to C, or seven and above, an increase of 0.3% compared with 2024. However, the country still lags behind England, where the percentage of top grades achieved was 21.8%, compared with 19.5%.<\/p>\n The overall pass rate was 62.5% in Wales, compared with 67.1% in England. A major overhaul of Welsh school qualifications comes into effect in September.<\/p>\n But there were more smiles than frowns in Maesteg on Thursday, where a banner reading \u201cWe\u2019re so proud of you\u201d greeted pupils outside the building, and screens inside the school hall cycled through photos from prom. Staff were on hand giving out \u201cgolden tickets\u201d \u2013 invitations to a \u201cwhat\u2019s next\u201d event next week featuring careers and CV help, vocational training, practical advice and other support options for those unsure about the future.<\/p>\n <\/span>Gethin Williams was Maesteg\u2019s top achiever, with seven A*s and three As. <\/span> Photograph: Francesca Jones\/The Guardian<\/p>\n This year\u2019s GCSE cohort made the important transition from primary to secondary school in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this year\u2019s results are the first that did not take \u201clost learning\u201d into account.<\/p>\n Despite the disruption, Gethin Williams, Maesteg\u2019s top achiever with seven A*s and three As, said he didn\u2019t feel as though the year group had missed out too much. \u201cI\u2019m actually glad it was earlier and not during the later years when we had exams, that would have been harder,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ella Ronan, who got two A*s, five As and two Bs and will study biology, history, PE and psychology for A-level, said: \u201cI think we missed out more socially than the educational stuff. The teachers worked really hard to catch us up.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Lara Davies.<\/span> Photograph: Francesca Jones\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Jones said: \u201cToday\u2019s success reflects how our teachers are all about raising aspirations and expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Welsh curriculum being introduced in schools since 2022 would bring new challenges, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is more focus on internal assessment, rather than exams, which is great for some learners, but will be more gruelling over a longer period of time for pupils and teachers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Brown results envelopes distributed, Maesteg\u2019s pupils, parents and teachers were ready to celebrate their hard work. The school\u2019s staff left together for a belated end-of-year lunch; Lara Davies, who got two A*s, said she and her friends were heading into Cardiff on the train for a day of shopping and sweet treats at Kaspa\u2019s Desserts.<\/p>\n \u201cI was panicking this morning but I\u2019m so relieved now,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mia Headington found out she had dyslexia the day before her first GCSE exam, but the diagnosis didn\u2019t faze her. Opening her results envelope on Thursday morning, the 16-year-old found out she had done much better than in her mock exams, achieving five A*s, an A, two Bs and a C. \u201cI am chuffed,\u201d the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[311,10167,10169,1403,10322,10321,778,334,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-17175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-gcse","10":"tag-gcses","11":"tag-joy","12":"tag-lagging","13":"tag-maesteg","14":"tag-results","15":"tag-school","16":"tag-wales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}