- Feel Good
- 16th Aug 2024
- 0
- 3 minutes
A Ukrainian refugee has achieved life-changing A-level results after fleeing the conflict to a host family in Newcastle
Teenagers across the country found out their A-level results yesterday, and whilst there are hundreds of stories of perseverance, a particularly moving story is that of Olha Volianyk (pronounced ‘Olya’), 18, who fled the conflict in Ukraine two years ago.
It was her host family in Newcastle who helped Olha connect with Royal Grammar School’s bursary scheme after she left Ukraine with her mum and sister, following the breakout of war in February 2022.
This week, she received four A-Levels with grades A*A*A*A – in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computer Science.
She said: “I have a dream that I will go back to Ukraine and be of use to my country. In the meantime, I have worked hard on my A-Levels and hope to perhaps go to Cambridge to study Computer Science, or maybe even MIT in Boston, before I go home”.
Olha added, “I am so grateful to my mum for making the decision to leave and to protect us, my incredible host family who took a leap of faith to take us in, my RGS teachers who challenge me every day and to all of the amazing donors who have enabled me to come to RGS. I am a stranger to you and you will never really know how much your gift has changed my life. I will never forget, and I will also do my very best to make you proud.”
Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster at RGS Newcastle, commented: “The whole RGS community is incredibly proud of all pupils, but Olha deserves special recognition for the circumstances under which she has been studying for the last two years.
“She is a truly remarkable young woman who has inspired her peers as well as the whole school community, through her passion for her subjects, her determination and dream to help support her home country.
“I personally believe that ‘it takes a city to educate its children’. This is reflected in the school’s founding legacy as our founder Thomas Horsley, Mayor of Newcastle, envisioned increasing opportunities and fulfilling the potential of young people in the North East. It is thanks to our amazing donors that we can change the lives of students like Olha.”
RGS has one of the largest co-educational sixth forms in the UK’s independent schools’ sector and Olha is just one of many of RGS’s A-Level student success stories.
In a record-breaking achievement for the school – which is preparing to celebrate its 500th anniversary in 2025 – students received 90.9% of grades at A*-B, 69.5% at A*-A, and 36.1% of grades at A*.
20 students achieved straight A* grades, while 79 earned all A* or A grades.
50% of bursary students’ grades were A*, while students with Special Educational Needs also performed comparably to the rest of the cohort, with a third of their grades at A*.
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