‘I left school with no GCSEs and cleaned pubs – now I’ve got a PhD’

Since then, she has become a senior lecturer and recently won the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award.

Anna’s unusual route into education meant she could pass on advice to her daughter when she sat her GCSEs 10 years ago.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do [after school] either,” says 26-year-old Star, speaking alongside her mum from the family home in Leicestershire.

“But you [Anna] said that I don’t need to worry about that – and I didn’t go to university after.”

“And that’s fine because university is not for everybody,” says Anna.

She still remembers the “disappointment”, says Anna, that she felt walking out of school without any qualifications but says whatever the outcome for students getting their results this summer, there is no need to worry.

“It’s not the end of the world if you have not done as well as you would have liked.”

Anna knows first-hand how some of the best students are those who start learning again much later in life.

“There are no rules to say that you have to do everything in those traditional education years,” she says.

“I’ve had a student on my course who was 65 years old and completed the degree.

“It really is never too late.”