On failing my A levels by Keren David

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about failing my A levels. It got a huge response  -  people thanking me for 'giving them hope'  -  and so I'm going to return to the same subject, as results are imminent. 

My A levels were  -  gulp -  40 years ago this summer. I needed the barest minimum grades  -  two Es -  to read English at University College London. I did not get them. I still  -  40 years later -  cannot believe it. 

The shock and pain of opening that envelope, of seeing the result, is something that I have carried with me throughout my life.  It turned out (the school got a recount) that I had failed one subject by two percent. Just a few more marks and my whole life would have been different. 

The consequences were huge. Instead of going to university, I applied for and got a job as a messenger girl on a newspaper. I retook the A levels, scraping through one in the autumn (not something that is available now). I reapplied to university. UCL turned me down, but Goldsmith's offered me an interview. They started off by suggesting that as I had a good job, I should stay there. But then we talked about books, and poetry, specifically T S Eliot's The Wasteland, and they sent me out of the room and recalled me to offer an unconditional place to read English. 

I was back on track. But I wasn't. I turned the place down. 

Why? Well, partly because my employers offered me a graduate-length apprenticeship as a reporter. I was being offered a shortcut into a fiercely competitive profession. That was why -  I told myself and anyone else who asked -  I decided to give university a miss.

But actually, I've come to realise over the last four decades, there was more to it than a pragmatic decision to train as a journalist. My faith in the education system had been utterly shaken. I no longer trusted exams and essays as a way of proving my worth. 
 
What's more, my younger brother had declared his intention of studying English at university, and he was applying to Cambridge. I did not want to feel second best. I already felt second best -  through no one's fault -  because he has a physical disability, and therefore throughout our lives, his achievements were always celebrated  (quite rightly) for the extra effort he has had to put it (and also because some people, depressingly, assume that physical disability means lack of intellectual capacity.)  At some level -  not especially consciously -  I decided to leave the academic study of English literature to him, and veer off onto an area -  journalism -  that I could make my own.

The good news is that I have had an excellent career in journalism. Bad A levels and no degree were no drawback. By 25 I was working for national newspapers, at 27 I was on the newsdesk of The Independent. Even though I took a career break to have children, I am still working as a journalist today. 

And no A levels were needed to write books either. I have written 12 YA books. Some of them have won prizes. They have been translated into other languages. So, in many ways I have not been held back by failing my A levels and then turning down a place at university.  

But actually, whenever I considered changing track, retraining, I came up against the obstacle of a lack of degree. And what's more, I dragged around the experience of failure as well. I started to put it to rest when I did half an Open University degree when my kids were small (and got 93% in one end of year exam!) but then life intervened, and when I was ready to start again the fees had tripled and I could no longer afford it. 

I encouraged my children to go to university -  even though one of them (we didn't know it, but she had undiagnosed dyspraxia) similarly struggled with A levels. She persevered -  showing incredible tenacity and resilience -  and has a degree in politics and sociology from Leicester University.  She has that degree forever -  no one can take it away from her. If she decides to change careers at 30, 40, 50 or 60 she has that first degree that I lack -  and which limited my choices. 

 A levels are not fit for purpose. They weren't 40 years ago, and they aren't now. They don't measure your worth or your intelligence or your ability to benefit from a university education. The ludicrous grade boundaries, in which tiny percentage points can change the trajectory of your life, are cruel and wrong.  They fail to take into account the whole picture, which can include everything from family background to poor teaching, to the way an exam paper is constructed.  They discriminate against many neuro-diverse people. They are narrow and unfair and reductive and limit opportunity. And the BTECs which offer many people an alternative are being downgraded by the government, just as they slash funding for arts subjects in higher education too. 

If you - or someone you love -  gets disappointing results this summer, please do not despair. A levels should never ever feel like the end of anything. There are so many more important things in life. Just take a deep breath, pick yourself up, and think hard about what you want to do. And why. And how you will achieve it. Believe me, it is possible.