The pass rate has unsurprisingly dipped this year after the grading changes but 16-year-old Inês Alves is now everyone's hero
Grenfell Tower survivor Inês Alves made headlines, and warmed hearts nationwide, when she managed to make it into a GCSE exam a mere few hours after escaping her home in the blazing tower.
Today, she's just found out she achieved a grade 9 (the highest grade possible) in Maths, followed by an A in Science, and an A* in Spanish.
Talking to This Morning, she admitted that all the media attention has come as quite a surprise for her: 'I wasn't expecting to get attention for just sitting a GCSE exam, as everyone else did. At the time I just thought it was normal.'
And, she had told The Telegraph earlier that she was 'in shock' when she sat the exam: 'I was on two hours sleep and I had just witnessed my house burning down. But it hadn’t sunk in. Occasionally it popped into my head, [but] I just tried to get distracted by the exam questions.'
She's now seeing a counsellor to help her get through the events that occurred.
But it may not be such good news for the other teenagers picking up their exam results today as statistically they won't be doing as well as before the grading changed - and that's according to an official statement confirming that less 9s will be given out than they previously were as A*s.
New GCSE grading system
A* - 8/9
A - 7
B - 6
C - 4/5
D - 2/3
E - 2
F - 2
G - 1/2
U
Will this dramatic changes in exams see the overall GCSE passes drop? The answer is yes. Many have criticised the new system, put into place by former Education Secretary Michael Gove, but only time will tell how constructive, or destructive it is.
