Every August, the same ritual plays out: envelopes torn open, screens refreshed, exam results scrutinised as though they are verdicts rather than snapshots. For a few days, a single set of grades becomes the measure of a young person’s worth, ability and future.
At Gateways, the Jewish community’s only alternative education provider, we see the human cost of that ritual up close. We work with young people in Year 9 and above who have struggled to engage with, or remain in, mainstream education, often because of anxiety, low self-esteem, or experiences that made the classroom feel like the last place they could succeed.
This year, our students sat more exams than ever before, with more than 80 GCSEs, Functional Skills and BTEC assessments between them, and achieved a 92 per cent pass rate. We are proud of that number. But the number is not really the point.
Think about what a GCSE actually asks of a 16-year-old: five years of learning, homework and revision, all riding on a handful of hours in an exam hall.
A student can have worked hard all year and still walk in having barely slept, worried sick, unwell, or carrying an emotional weight distracting them from the exam. We ask a young person to be fit, in every sense, for one day out of five years of learning, then treat that day as though it tells us everything about them. And when results land, we are often too quick to jump straight to the number and judge from there. If a young person doesn’t get what they hoped for, it is easy to catastrophise: to treat it as a closed door rather than one of several open ones. In reality, there is almost always another route, a resit, a different course, a different college, a different path entirely, arrived at a little later than planned. Either way, the world does not stop.
At Gateways, we ask our students a different question: “What’s the worst that can happen?” If things don’t go as expected, we don’t see that as the end of the road. We look for another qualification, another route or another way to help them reach their goal.
If a young person doesn’t achieve the grade they were hoping for, we don’t simply say: “You can’t continue.” We pause, we reflect and we ask: “What will actually work best for this young person?” Because sometimes, success isn’t about following the original path. It’s about finding the right one.
None of that works unless the young person feels heard, accepted and safe first. Everything else follows from that, not the other way round. It is why our students learn in a space that looks nothing like a traditional classroom: no uniforms, teachers known by their first names, an environment built on relationship rather than hierarchy. The world does not stop because of it. Students simply feel more heard and are treated more like the young adults they are becoming. It is also worth saying plainly: the world has moved on. Increasingly, employers value personal skills, resilience and real workplace experience every bit as much as a 9 on a GCSE paper or an A at A-level.
We do, of course, celebrate results, and we are proud of every grade our students achieve this year. But we celebrate something else too: the journey each of them has already made, simply to get here. Our students are young people who have struggled with their mental health, sometimes profoundly. For many of our families, just leaving the house and walking through our doors each morning is already an achievement, long before any exam is sat. The bar has moved.
So as another results season closes, we would ask parents, teachers and the wider community to remember this: a result is a moment, not a life sentence. What we say to a young person on the day they open that envelope may matter more than what is written inside it.
Here is what we tell every one of our students, and what we would ask the whole community to tell theirs: your results do not define you. What defines you is what you do next, and there is always a next.
Laurence Field is CEO and founder of Gateways. For more information about the school, which supports young people between 14 and 25, go to: gateways.org.uk
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