LUKE MARSDEN: making the best of tough times

Back in my school days that’s what we used to call the kids who delivered homework on time, read the books issued out and generally liked school.

You’ll be surprised to hear that I wasn’t actually a swot.

I didn’t excel in school or college, but I wasn’t the bottom of the ladder either.

It’s this group of people I feel for the most after the past few weeks of academic chaos and uncertainty.

I’m a proud alumnus of St John Rigby College in Orrell (in fact I even returned a few years ago to switch on their Christmas lights!)

I actually spent an additional year at John Rigby (see picture) as I didn’t get a high enough maths GCSE to make it onto an A-level course the first time round.

Looking back that extra year wasn’t too bad in fact it allowed me to fully embrace the college experience, granted it was also a year of additional bus journeys up to Orrell.

We’ve been flooded with sounds and images of students in tears over their exam results and thankfully this is now being rectified but this is just a bump in the road.

I had a setback for a year and had to even pick up an additional GCSE (later in my life that psychology course will come in handy, I’m sure) to justify sitting another year.

I know some people that failed most of their exams and now run their own businesses. There are avenues out there.

Yes it’s easy for Lord Sugar to tweet he didn’t sit any exams and he did OK whilst sunbathing on his multi-million-pound yacht but if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we can make the best of a bad situation whether we own a yacht or not.