A Kesgrave High School student has defied expectations to secure his college spot after losing his sight during his GCSE studies.
Scott Sexton, 16, has just opened his final GCSE marks to discover he has secured his spot at Kesgrave Sixth Form, and now gets to start the exciting build-up to beginning the next step in his education.
But for Scott there is an even greater sense of relief - having managed to get his grades while his lost his sight.
After opening his results, Scott said: “First of all I was quite shocked as I was expecting to get lower ones after missing a few months of school, but I’m really happy with it.
“I’m staying at the school to study PE, Maths and English as A-Level subjects.”
Already blind in his left eye, Scott started to lose vision in his right eye as well, and ended up missing a substantial amount of school during what should have been the same build up of revision and exam practice as everyone else.
As his eyesight deteriorated, Scott was left with just 8% of his vision out of his right eye.
As he adjusted to his blindness and got ready to come back to school, teachers and staff stepped up to help him.
Scott added: “The school have been really helpful. I had a laptop and the school have been great at getting me work and tactile assistance.
“Overall I think I did really well with my revision.”
“I lost two months of my studies so that everyone could adjust to it and I could come to terms with it.”
As he began to become more comfortable with his sight loss he started at an athletics club and met another blind athlete who had helped him try gymnastics, windsurfing - and Scott is even training for a marathon.
Scott’s mother, Melanie Hukal, said: “It is a new life and obviously for the first few months it was devastating.
But we’ve pushed Scott to have as normal a life as possible and I think since losing his sight he has more opportunities than when he could see - he’s very busy.”
She added: “We’re very very proud of him, we always knew he could do it, he’s the brains of the household.”
Headteacher Nigel Burgoyne said: “We reserve our awe and admiration for Scott, who lost his sight but has still managed to achieve 7 GCSEs and will progress into our Sixth Form.”
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