Teenager who escaped Grenfell Tower sat chemistry test the same day, gets A

By Mark Duell

A teenager who escaped from the Grenfell Tower blaze on the eve of her chemistry GCSE exam has been awarded an A grade.

Ines Alves, who lived with her family on the 13th floor, fled the burning tower block in the middle of the night with just her phone and chemistry notes before sitting the 9am exam in the same clothes she left in.

The 16-year-old - who opened her results live on ITV's This Morning with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford today - also gained the highest possible grade, a 9, in her maths GCSE.

The girl, who appeared with her brother Tiago, said she was "quite happy with my grades". Photo / ITV

Speaking at Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith, West London, moments after opening her results, she said: "It's good. I'm quite happy with my grades."

She added: "I wish I did more, but then again, I don't know, it hasn't sunk in yet.

"For the exams I missed, I didn't do too well in them overall."

Ines missed two history exams, one RE exam and one physics exam in the days after the fire, which affected her overall grades.

Ines also revealed that she gained an A* in her Spanish GCSE, with headteacher Marian Doyle calling her results "fantastic".

She plans to study chemistry, maths, economics and sociology when she begins her A-levels later this year.

The scale of the Grenfell disaster was "slowly" starting to sink in, she said, adding that support from her school and friends had been "really good".

Asked what she mostly remembered from the night of the fire, she said: "The whole thing. The screaming, people screaming, begging for help."

The family, who owned their 13th-floor flat, are currently living in a hotel, more than two months on from the blaze.

They have received offers of temporary accommodation but want to wait until they are offered a place with the opportunity to turn it into their permanent home.

Thick smoke risen into the cloudless sky as over 200 firefighters from across London tackled the blaze. Photo / REX/Shutterstock

Ines said staying in a hotel was "not ideal but it's not terrible".

She was accompanied by her brother, Tiago, 20, who said he was "very proud" of his "overachiever" sister.

He said: "I am really proud of her - I have no words for it. It seems very surreal even though I knew she was going to get it. Maths has been one of our strongest subjects family-wise."

Headteacher Ms Doyle said Ines's results were "fantastic" and the number of "9s" in English and Maths was in "double figures".

She added: "Given that she had a number of exams still to do and in the face of that adversity and that shock, and I suppose the reflection of 'what if'... she gathered this strength, that inner spirit.

"The girls have dreams and aspirations and they are supported in having the highest dreams and aspirations, and that determination to keep going, that inner strength, that inner core to keep going... everything that she'd worked for, she wasn't going to let go just as a result of this.

Grenfell Tower in west London after a fire engulfed the 24-storey building. Photo / AP

"It must have been so hard for her to actually come in and do that and try to blot out the scenes of what she had seen.

"And to do that just says a lot about Ines and young people in general, who get a bad press. They do seek to do their best, they are genuinely good young people."

She thanked the local authority and the Diocese of Westminster for their "amazing support" in the weeks following the fire.

Pupils grieve for friends in Grenfell fire

Students at a school near Grenfell Tower have described the pain of losing friends and acquaintances in the tragedy in the midst of their GCSE exams.

Sion-Manning Catholic Girls School in Ladbroke Grove, west London, sits under a mile away from the blackened shell of the former housing estate, where a devastating fire killed at least 80 people on June 14.

Jerusalem Benyam, 16, lost her friend in the tower, and said she had been unable to focus during her GCSE science paper, just hours after the fire took hold.

Candles are lit near to the burned out Grenfell Tower apartment building, centre, during a silent march to pay respect to those killed in the Grenfell Tower fire, in London. Photo / AP

"I had two exams that day and to be honest I wasn't really concentrating," she said.

"It was a traumatising week, to be honest. And after that day all we did was help out the community, and I don't think I revised much after that, so I was really worried about failing.

"It was hard, because I lost my friend, but we had to stay strong for the community and help each other out."

Jerusalem described how she had been too distressed to turn her attention to her exams as the aftermath of the tragedy unfolded.

She said: "In science I wasn't concentrating properly: I was crying and upset, and I was doodling the file, but by lunch time I got stronger and I did a bit better in history. I gathered my thoughts."

Despite spending the majority of her time after school dedicating herself to local Grenfell relief efforts, Jerusalem achieved one A*, one A, and a grade 7 in maths and 6 in English literature and language under the new numbering system introduced for the first time this year.

A fellow Sion-Manning pupil, Romaysa Taibi, 16, who lives in nearby Latymer, achieved a grade 8 in her GCSE English, and said the disaster compelled her to go out to help others in her forthcoming career.

She said: "You come into school and you see people crying and breaking down because they knew people in that building and you just don't know what to do and how to comfort them."

Candles are lit near to the burned out Grenfell Tower apartment building during a silent march to pay respect to those killed in the Grenfell Tower fire, at Notting Hill in London. Photo / AP

Romaysa said she now plans to study to become a doctor so that she can save lives.

"To see people burn to death and not being able to help them kind of just fuelled my need to help out again," she said.

Sion-Manning headmaster Andrew O'Neill said he was "incredibly proud" that the school achieved a 72 per cent pass rate at level four or above in English and maths.

Mr O'Neill also said the school received "fantastic support" from Kensington and Chelsea council in the wake of the Grenfell fire, and praised the education team for their "superb" efforts.

He said: "Our staff have been outstanding in terms of the support they've given to the pupils.

"Our focus in the days and the weeks afterwards was to try and keep normality within the school and keep the learning in the classrooms going. And we had support where it was needed."

Mr O'Neill said counsellors and educational psychologists had been in place at the time of the disaster and said the school would liaise with council authorities to ensure pupils continued to have access to support services in the months ahead.