Cramlington students overcoming boundaries
Students at Cramlington Learning Village are busy overcoming traditional boundaries as well as personal challenges.
Tallulah Dowden is not only the first female Construction student in the school’s history, she was also awarded a Distinction – the first in recent years in the subject.
Sophie Matthews has Dyslexia and Visual Stress but received seven Grade 9s. Muhsen Sharifi picked up his results – including a 7 in Persian – just over two years since he came to the school, without being able to speak English, after his family left Afghanistan.
Tallulah and Sophie both see their futures in the traditional male strongholds of Construction and Engineering while Charlotte Harding – six 9s and four 8s – wants to be an Astrophysicist.
Tallulah, who also did well in her other subjects, said: “As a year we were quite close knit and I got along with the people inside the class very well. I didn’t think it was that much of a difference that I was a boy or a girl. You should be able to do things that people think aren’t usual.”
Sophie is staying at Cramlington Learning Village (CLV) to study A Levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computer Science. Her haul of GCSE top grades included English.
“I’ve always struggled with revising it because it took me so much longer than it seemed to take everyone else,” she said. 
Proud Mum Lesley said: “She worked so unbelievably hard. It proves that if you put the work in you get results.”
Muhsen, who is looking at a future in Engineering, said he will be forever grateful to the school: “They helped me so much. Thank you to all the students and teachers and all the staff.”
Charlotte also praised CLV. “I don’t think I would have done as well without the support of the teachers.”
After receiving a good set of grades Alex Buglass is deciding whether to stay on at Cramlington or pursue a more vocational course at college. Not so long ago, he said, he would not have imagined he would be faced with such a choice, but by making the most of the support he was offered – as well as his own hard work – he turned things around.
Co-headteachers Jon Bird and Kim Irving congratulated the students and thanked the whole school community who helped make the results possible.
They said: “Cramlington Learning Village is celebrating yet another excellent set of GCSE and Vocational results today with students achieving strong performances in a range of subjects. These results reflect our recently published Ofsted report which highlights the many strengths of the school, the achievements of students over time and the high standard of the teaching.”
After next year’s GCSE results the opening of a new multi-million pound school on the CLV site will be just weeks away.