As pupils at Havelock get their results, all eyes are on the academy in Grismby as it prepares to introduce qualification
Havelock academy in Grimsby received its first ever set of A-level results today, having set up its sixth form in 2008. But they are also among the last for a school which views the qualification as a limited – and limiting – measure of pupils' talents.
"Two more years, and then we will be using the international baccalaureate," said the headteacher, Nick O'Sullivan, as pupils compared results beside a quacking pet duck which shares Havelock's grounds with a wildflower garden.
"I believe that will bring us a richness and flexibility which we can apply across the school at all levels."
Two Havelock pupils illustrate the various pitfalls of the current exam system, despite good results.
Lauren Ward, 18, has won the school its first A* grade, in photography. However, her place at the University of Lincoln still depends on the results of retakes of GCSEs in English and maths, due next week.
"She's brilliant at photography, no one can have the slightest doubt about that," said Janet Shawcross, the school's A-level co-ordinator.
Ward has already set up wedding and commercial business "to earn a bit of money and to get my name out there for when I've finished my studies."
But the two GCSE basics came a lot harder, and the regimentation of grades for university could still, just possibly, mean that she loses out.
Jessica Paterson has got three Bs in English, psychology and social care, enough for her to pick and choose from five university offers. Instead, she is one of a growing number of well-qualified leavers opting to go into full-time work instead.
"I'm just fed up of studying," she said. "I've been offered a job as a support worker and events organiser for Mencap, which is just want I want to do. It'll be great experience, and I can maybe think about going to university later."
O'Sullivan, who was head-hunted from the independent sector to lead the new academy, believes that the international baccalaureate (IB) will nurture and encourage such independent souls. Lauren in particular, he says, has shown "a route to success which I don't think anyone would have foreseen a couple of years ago".
The IB system will feature innovations such as Dutch and Swedish – languages familiar on lorries heading up and down the M180 to the port – and courses designed to help students such as Paterson into work at 18, if they prefer to postpone or sidestep university.
Havelock has been chosen to trial the aspects of the IB, and O'Sullivan hopes that the new exam may also ease the careful targeting of A-level students towards "achievable" universities, which can sometimes fall on the wrong side of caution.
Havelock's system of houses, all named after famous Grimsby trawlers, encourages intensive mentoring of pupils which leads teachers to a good notion of where they will succeed, and where applications to further education might be risky.
As a result, two-thirds of the first tranche of 19 A-level students have got their first choice of place. All the others have got into their "insurance" options, bar two who are still waiting for confirmation or clearing.
"The teachers advised us very carefully, and I'm glad they did," said Joe Wilkinson, 18, who knew by the end of his exams that things had not gone as well as he'd hoped. So he backed up his first choice of Nottingham Trent with Manchester Met and, in the event he failed to make the grades for either, a third choice, Grimsby Institute, where he will now study psychology.
Eyes now turn to Havelock's lower sixth, including two Oxbridge applicants and budding mathematician Aakash Limbu, son of a former Gurkha who relocated to the UK three years ago. He took maths and physics this summer, a year early, and got an A and a B, which he hopes to supplement with more A-levels in order to gain a place at York next year.
The attention comes not just from Grimsby either. Havelock was favourite of the last government, much-encouraged by the former education minister Lord Adonis. And the school's sponsor, David Ross, the scion of Grimsby's leading fishery family who made his own fortune with Carphone Warehouse, is one of the Tories' main cheerleaders for academies.
Lord Plant, the philosopher and another influential adviser to government, who was himself a Havelock alumnus, also keeps in touch and is following the IB trial with interest.