AFTER a stressful week for some local families, I trust that today’s GCSE results will bring no unpleasant surprises.

This has been an extraordinarily difficult year for young people who were unable to take their exams in the height of the pandemic.

The fact is that there is no perfect substitute for an exam and grades were always going to be based on estimates.

COVID-19 has been hugely disruptive to education and the decision to now award students their teacher assessed grades for this year’s A-levels and GCSEs hopefully offers certainty and resolves the individual injustices thrown up by moderation.

OFQUAL consulted with teaching unions and worked hard to construct the fairest possible model to award grades consistent with normal exam standards but it became clear that this process resulted in more anomalies than could be resolved in a timely fashion.

As OFQUAL said this week, schools must reopen in September for everyone’s sake and we need our teachers to be able to focus on that vital task.

Although I welcome the restoration of a clear path forward for young people, I think we do have to recognise that none of the options open to us were perfect or consequence-free.

I am extremely sympathetic to all the local teachers who submitted grades that were accurate and carefully evidenced and of course I feel for the families for whom last Thursday brought dismay rather than celebration.

But, nationally, teachers’ grades indicated A-level attainment that is up 38 per cent on last year, meaning we now have unprecedented numbers of young people holding top grades and consequently securing places at their first-choice universities.

To ensure higher education institutions can honour their places and provide them with an optimum experience, the government intends to remove temporary student number controls and work with universities to rapidly create additional capacity.

A task force has been set up and will be working at pace with the sector.

Now it is up to young people to rise to the challenge of being part of this uniquely competitive cohort and seize the opportunities open to them.