Stoke-on-Trent Ukrainian student passes GCSEs in four months

Student Halyna said passing all her exams was "really exciting"

A Ukrainian student who started school four months before her GCSEs says she is "really proud" after passing them.

Halyna, 16, left war-torn Kyiv just over a year ago after her step-father got a job in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Thistley Hough Academy pupil said adapting to an English school was "terrifying" but she had got the marks she needed for college.

She added she was looking forward to telling her mum and hoped she would be proud of her.

Halyna's family were stranded in Ukraine awaiting their UK visas when Russia invaded in 2022.

"The first day, the whole 24 hours we [spent] in the bomb shelter because we were really scared to leave," she said.

They fled to Poland, where a relative helped them travel to Warsaw, then on to Romania where they lived for three months before returning home to collect their visas.

'Third language'

Starting school shortly before Christmas, Halyna said new friends helped her find her feet.

"At first it was really terrifying," she said. "The studying system is obviously a bit harder here. English is my third language so it's even harder.

"The exam board was asking for [a] really, really high level of English and I really felt I was learning it all over again from zero."

• Live: England GCSE results show widening north-south divide

• GCSE results 2023, BTec Level 2 and National 5s - full guide

• GCSE grades 2023: The 9-1 boundaries explained

She plans to celebrate in a cafe with friends after obtaining 5 and 6 grades - roughly aligning with Cs and Bs respectively in the previous grading method.

"I've done really well, I've got all the marks I needed to. I passed the exam and I got into [the] course I wanted to go to in college," she said.

Nationally, GCSE pass rates have fallen for a second year running - with 68.2% of all grades marked at grades 4/C and above - in an attempt to return grades to pre-pandemic levels.