21/08/2025
This morning I posted a video of my daughter opening her GCSE results.
She passed every exam she took & will now leave home to go and board during the week at college studying animal care.
I am so happy - but Iâm happy for her, I am relieved - but Iâm relieved for her - because if Iâm honest, I didnât care what her results looked like - just like I didnât care about Betsy and Sebs because I know my babies are incredible and hardworking and kind and they will be successful no matter what results they getâŠbut Iâm not sure how life would look right now if Lula didnât get those results that her brain made her believe she neededâŠ.and so Iâm writing this post right now for anyone who didnât get the results you wanted today, or still think you needâŠ.
Itâs been almost three decades since I took my GCSEâs - and I didnât take many. At that time I was in my third foster care placement & I spent the majority of my time swallowing ecstasy pills or necking amphetamine to numb both my past trauma and how terrified I was of what my future looked like.
I asked one of my best friends Leila to collect my results when she picked hers up & I when I heard through friends she passed everything and was accepted into her chosen college I didnât even call her to find out what grades Iâd got, months later I found out I failed some, and on the others I got a U - which means ungraded - I didnât even achieve a good enough score to be given a grade.
I took more drugs to numb the pain of failing, telling myself and anyone that asked that I didnât care - but deep down I did, constantly reminding myself that during my first three years at secondary school I was top set everything bar maths (because oh my god some things just do not make sense to me and that was one of them. Algebra, pie charts, fractions - itâs a no from me)âŠ
I turned 16 & moved into my first bedsit.
I had to work two jobs to pay my rent and bills. It wasnât an option for me to go to college like my friends & then when Iâd travel up to Brighton uni a few years later to spend weekends with Leila and my other friends who were all studying to go on to have incredible careers I would return home to my minimum paid jobs, feeling a shame in the pit of my tummy but knowing my life was survival, it was about taking what I could to get by.
I am still not qualified in anything.
I have never been to college or uni, I have never studied since I left school & I donât have anything I can put on paper in terms or grades, qualifications or letters after my name to show my skill setâŠ
âŠbut I have written four Sunday times best selling books, I started a clothing brand not having a clue about clothing and my drops sell out. I opened a Womenâs Centre where we support families across Torbay so they can access Domestic abuse support, I come up with crazy ideas like a Patreon page, book tours across the country and journaling clubs and people support me.
I also employ a staff team of five women who have worked for me for over three years - they all have different roles. Four of them work with vulnerable families every day and one of them is responsible for ensuring every company we run turns over enough profit to keep us all employed & that we have enough funds to pay our VAT & taxes & continue the work we do - and you know what? I donât know if they have a GCSE between them, and I donât care.
I wouldnât employ anyone based on the result of a piece of paper for subjects they could have been made to study that they hated or struggled withâŠI employ people on their knowledge, their skill set, the vibe I get from them, the fire they have in their bellies & whether theyâre kind.
Iâve said it a million times but incase you missed it Iâll say it againâŠsince I left school 27 years ago the entire world has changed. Nothing looks as it did.
We have the internet, mobile phones, AI, Chat GPT.
When I went to sign my books in a warehouse I watched how they were picked and packed by robots, not humans - there wasnât one person involved in the entire process. I listened to the Manager tell me how they replaced 50 staff members with 10 robots because they donât call in sick, make mistakes or let them downâŠ
How, when the world looks like this, are we still expecting our children to sit the same exams as we did decades ago?
Why is it, that the only thing that we havenât updated or changed is the education system and exams when the world doesnât resemble anything it did when this system was formed?
Fifteen & sixteen years old - these are the ages we are expecting our teens to take these exams. Itâs beyond brutal in todayâs world, and for the ones who donât get the results they need, want or deserve - to open that envelope today & feel that rejection at not being allowed to go to their chosen sixth form or college, to know they have to study & re-sit more exams theyâve already found torturous - the feeling of being a âfailureâ when their bodies are already overflowing with such mental and physical changes, when theyâre trying to navigate life online.
They have apps available to them at the touch of a thumbprint and games they can download in seconds. The draw to get that dopamine hit from Tik Tok, snapchat or other apps, massively outweighs retaining the information on fifteen poems for an English exam. Many are trying to survive being ripped apart in group chats over learning about electromagnetic waves for their science examâŠ
They are Covid babies.. the trauma those years caused to all of us, but this particular year group began Secondary school during Covid. They had that huge school change transition during a period that will make history - forever.
I arrived at my daughters school this morning to collect her results and walked past a girl sat alone sobbing into her results, as we were leaving we saw one of my daughters friends who is also autistic and when I asked how they did they said âI failed everything. I donât know what Iâm going to do nowââŠand as we sat in the car & we opened her results & she got what she deserved I havenât been able to stop thinking about all the kids feeling broken today & I felt the relief, the sheer weight lift off my shoulders that she had passed, because honestly? Those exams have battered her mental health. She stopped eating, she has lost so much weight that she still hasnât regained itâs been terrifying. She had tonsillitis repeatedly. She revised into the early hours every night. She couldnât sleep. She was an emotional wreck. I am still finding flash cards scattered round my house with GCSE questions on months laterâŠshe was banned from prom for not going to one of her history exams because she dysregulated over not knowing the subject well enough for weeks despite revising it daily because her brain physically couldnât make sense of it. Everything was a battle for herâŠ
But what about the kids who didnât get their results today that have no one to battle for them? What about the kids coming from unsafe homes where there is no guidance, love or support who are living behind closed doors in survival mode because itâs total chaos. Theyâre living in a home with abuse, neglect or addiction, turning up to take exams hungry or full or trauma, terrified of how home looks for them? What about all the kids living with a terminally ill family member or having lost someone close to them and navigating life full of grief? What about the SEN kids - battling in a system not made for them? What about the ones going home to the pushy parents who will show and voice their disappointment at their childâs results to anyone who will listen including their child. There are so many children out there who were never going to be able to achieve the grades, two of my best friends children today in this situation, both absolutely broken but couldnât have done any better given their circumstances.
Just because weâre doing what weâve always done doesnât make it right, or okâŠand to anyone today whoâs reading this feeling devastated, heartbroken, ashamed or sad - if youâre panicking about how the future looks because you arenât going to get into your dream college or chosen apprenticeship, if youâre full of dread and anxiety knowing you have to re-take so many exams that caused you so much stress, donât be.
Today the GCSE for English and Maths pass rate is the lowest its ever been in a decade - the the two exams you need to move on into college or apprenticeships and its clear from the gender gap of the results this age is not the time to be giving our boys more pressure and stress of exams.
Whatâs clear here, is that this isnât a you problem, this is a government problem, where they need to overhaul the entire system to ensure that everyone leaving the school system has an equal chance of success based, one that doesnât exclude or reject or ruin your mental health, instead it celebrates your unique talents, allowing you to showcase what you love, what youâre good at & where you will succeed in life. We all shine, just in totally different ways - and sitting everyone in huge halls taking a tonne of identical exams when our brains work so differently - that weâve been taking for decades and decades about things that no longer matter because the whole world has changed is barbaric.
Itâs wrong & its cruel & I canât bare the amount of heartbreak in my inbox alone from parents of broken teenagersâŠ
If you are in a position to help change the way the world looks, if youâre an employer that can take people on without the need to evidence GCSE results, if you have the opportunity to create apprenticeships where you can guide and support our young people please do - they need us more than ever right nowâŠ
âŠsending hugs to anyone that reads this and needs it, remember you havenât failed - youâve been failed â€ïžđ„č
