When I was 17, my A-level drama class spent a lesson composing a birthday card to Harold Pinter. We were studying Pinter’s The Birthday Party at the time, and my wonderful lecturer would regularly expound upon her admiration for the play and the man himself. It is for this reason that I can tell you that Harold Pinter was an avid cricket fan, so much so that he claimed cricket to be "the greatest thing that God created on the earth", famously stating that it was "certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either".

My teenage-self delighted in this anecdote and although no, I didn’t write about it in my final exam, I continue to remember this small detail to this day.

I was in the last cohort of students to take the "old A levels" (the clever amongst you can use this information to calculate my age, if so inclined), before AS levels were introduced and when I like to think we lived a simpler life. I didn’t have a laptop or a mobile phone and when I got my first proper boyfriend, we used to arrange to meet outside C&A (remember that shop?) the night before, talking on my parents' landline (but only after 6pm, because that was when it was free to call). Anyway, I digress.

Background: A-level results: Colleges call for a review

GCSE resits: Two-thirds still do not pass by 19

More: German-style FE system in Britain? Zero chance of that

My point is that I loved college. Not just enjoyed it but loved it. It remains my best educational experience to this day, and I feel so grateful to have been taught by fantastic, creative teachers who were able to offer me a rounded, cultural and political education, as well as enabling me to answer the questions on the exam paper at the end of the journey.

Results days that knock everyone for six

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is in no way my intention to cast any kind of condescending eye on the college lecturers of today; after all, I am one myself. In the college where I teach, I am fortunate to be surrounded by a multitude of talented, intelligent, thinking colleagues who continue to inspire, enthuse and challenge their learners on a daily basis. In the wake of the recent tumult that has been the post-pandemic grading process, what I feel contemplative about, however, is the extent to which an over-emphasis on results has compromised our ability to present "an education" as the life-long, varied and expansive journey that it is.

Writing in Tes this week, Frank Coffield and Reiner Siebert eloquently reminded us of the "richness of the concept of education" – a richness I certainly experienced myself as an A-level student all those years ago. But I am left pondering if I am freely able to offer the same to my own students today.  

In the week 2020’s unprecedented A-level results were released, the furore surrounding the assessment and awarding of grades has gone far in highlighting the extent to which we prioritise the summative outcome within the hierarchy of our education system. I don’t intend to delve into the complexities of why or how this has come to be the case, but want instead to ask how we can redress this imbalance and create a culture of education that is first and foremost, governed by the joy of learning itself?

The weeks and months to come will undoubtedly bring challenges as we all adjust to the "new normal" of teaching in Covid-19 times, but there are also opportunities to remind ourselves and our learners that their education is something that isn’t just confined to the content of the syllabus. What I will be saying to my own A-level students who received results yesterday is this: I celebrate you for your efforts, I rejoice with you in your achievements, I stand alongside you in your frustrations and anxieties. But (and here’s the important bit) your grade does not define you. This is not all that education is about.

In conclusion, I return to Harold Pinter, and cricket. He said: "Drama happens in big cricket matches. But also in small cricket matches." A-level results day will continue to be a "big match day" for the foreseeable, but, as a teacher thinking about returning to the classroom next month, I vow to keep seeking out the drama in those small matches, too; the unplanned conversations, funny stories and anecdotes, tiny moments of awe and wonder. After all, a cricketer knows that the numbers on the scorecard don’t tell the full story of their innings, and an education is more than the sum of its parts.

Beth Curtis is a drama and performing arts lecturer at a college in England.