I went back to my old Wolverhampton school on GCSE results day and it brought back a range of emotions

Pupils at Colton Hills Community School in Wolverhampton were among thousands of 16-year-olds across the Black Country and Staffordshire who had worked hard for two years and struggled through learning during the Covid pandemic and were nervously making their way into the school theatre to discover how they had done.

GCSE results day is one I can still remember 26 years later, having gone into my GCSE exams in 1998 with the hopes of achieving at least five C grades, including English Language, to guarantee a place at Wolverhampton College.

On the big day in August 1998, I walked over with some of my friends, full of nerves and hoping for the best, entered the Sixth Form area and was immediately met with a firm handshake by my maths teacher Mr Wylie, which I took as a good sign.

The day is still vividly etched in my memory, reading over the results page and realising that I had got the five Cs I needed and had got the required English language, as well as English literature, PE, German and, I think surprisingly for all concerned, Maths, as I had not been expected to do well.

I was also somewhat surprised to receive two Ds for Science, another subject I was not gifted at, while the D in History was disappointing, but the E in Technology was kind of shrugged off as I hadn't expected anything from that.

The memories of the day, the elation at my results and the realisation that I'd got into college and the celebrations with my friends are all still fresh years later, so it was a full circle moment for me to go back there on GCSE results day and see how the pupils of 2024 had done.

The location for the results day at Colton Hills was the theatre inside the school, all set up with a desk at the front for pupils to meet the headteacher Julie Hunter and other staff as they got their results, and the banked theatre seating provided a place for students to take a moment and read their results.

Inside the theatre, there were also desks with members of staff where those students could talk about what to do next and when they could retake exams, as well as discussing A-Levels and the next steps into Sixth Form or talk to representatives from Wolverhampton College and Juniper Training about courses and apprenticeships.

The atmosphere was a mixture of excitement and nerves and crackled with yelps and shouts of delight and surprise as students opened up their exam packs and read their results and reacted to their friends' successes, which reminded me of that fateful day 26 years ago.