College News

QE Hosts VIP Visitor on A Level Results Day

Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington played host to an important visitor on an extremely important day yesterday. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, visited the college and spoke to students and staff about their experiences during A Level results day. Sir Keir met with groups of students and discussed how their futures had been impacted upon by the algorithm used to calculate A Level grades.

He said “Results for young people are so important and something has gone horribly wrong.  40 per cent of students have had their results down-marked, so that’s thousands of individuals whose opportunities may be dashed by this. Students are upset, frustrated and angry about the injustice.

“But, on top of that, there’s now an increasing number of colleges including here, that say it’s not even worked on its own terms. If you look at the last three or four years, this cohort is worse than the years before.”

He later tweeted that it had been  “Brilliant to spend the day in Darlington today meeting students, teachers and people from across the town.”

QE students also had the opportunity to speak to the media about their experiences, something they did with remarkable poise and clarity given the emotive nature of what was being discussed. All the students involved were a credit to both themselves and the college.