Teesdale School A Levels
STRAIGHT A student Katleho Semuli is reaching for the stars when he sets course for Southampton University next month.
The 18-year-old Teesdale School student will study aeronautics and astronautical engineering with a view to a career designing space rockets.
Katleho, who lives in Barnard Castle, achieved lift-off with A* grades in maths, physics and chemistry.
He said he had found it difficult to keep motivated “being in the same room all day” during a regime of online lessons and revision at home and said his grades were better than he had expected.
“I needed an A* and two As. I was really surprised to get three A*s but I am happy about it.”
He said he had always been interested in space and taking an online course last year had convinced him this was where his future lies.
“You are doing something that’s quite rare and helping to widen horizons,” he said.
Students at Teesdale School performed well in this year’s A levels, with grades based on teacher assessments.
Some 46 percent of sixth formers achieved at least one A* or Distinction* and 35 per cent of the cohort received straight A grades or better.
Alice Crossling, from Barnard Castle, struggled with chronic fatigue syndrome through her A levels but celebrated A*s in biology and chemistry. She also achieved a distinction in applied science.
The 19-year-old will study a three-year course in adult nursing at Leeds University starting in September.
“I have been working really hard for a long time, so it’s a sense of relief to feel you have achieved something really good,” she said.
Jonathan Proud, from Staindrop, celebrated A*s in psychology and physics and As in maths and chemistry and is heading to Nottingham University to study physics with a year in industry.
He said he had found studying for his A levels during the pandemic and all its associated problems “horrendous” .
He added: “I would rather have done it properly and I would have felt more satisfaction if we had done the exams.”
Eve Buxton’s A*s in psychology and English Literature and an A in history were better than her predicted grades and she will head north to Newcastle to study law.
The 18-year-old, from Middleton-in-Teesdale, said studying for her A levels had been “quite surreal” .
She added: “It meant that you could have a really bad day but you could make up for it later.”
Dr Simon Henderson, head of sixth form, said: “Education, like all areas of society, has been hugely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, and students faced unprecedented challenges this year.
“The decision to cancel exams as we entered the national lockdown in January 2021 meant students faced an uncertain future about how their results would be decided.
“They showed incredible flexibility and resilience as they adapted to the fast-changing picture and stayed focused on being the best that they could be.”
He added: “More so than ever before students have achieved what they have by working hard every day on a number of different assessment tasks stretching over weeks and months.
“Their results were forged in one long continuous exam that tested them in a myriad of different ways.”
