Jamie Beale holds his GCSE results that were released today

Jamie Beale’s academic achievement is far from towering compared with many teenagers who have enjoyed a less turbulent adolescence. But he is quite pleased – if a little dazed – after reading out his GSCE results: a C in science and a smattering of Ds, Es and Fs in other subjects, with only one outright fail.

“I did alright. It’s quite good,” says Jamie, minutes after digesting the news at home in Camden. He did “about the same” as he had been expecting, after studying at Chalcot, a special school for children with emotional and behavioural disorders where he went after exclusion from a mainstream secondary.