Portsmouth boy excluded from school who wanted to 'turn it round' thrilled at passing GCSEs

Owen Lawton said he was 'really happy' with his GCSE results. Credit: ITV Meridian

A 16-year-old boy from Portsmouth who was excluded from school three times has spoken of his pride at 'turning his life around' and passing his GCSEs.

Owen Lawton was one of more than 100 pupils collecting his results from Portsmouth Academy on Thursday. (24 August)

Despite getting off to a tricky start at secondary school, Owen decided he wanted to achieve and began to put the hard work in.

"When I first joined in Year 7, I had no care whatsoever for school and thought it was the best place to muck around.

Owen Lawton was one of thousands of GCSE students receiving their results on Thursday. Credit: ITV Meridian

"But when I got to Year 10, I decided to change my attitude and try and turn it around, because I just knew I wasn't going to get anywhere in life by continuing how I was going, and I needed to change it to do something well in my life.

"Being excluded wasn't a nice thing.

"I regret a lot of my time between Year 7 and now, I wish I'd paid attention more."

Keeping his head down for his studies meant Owen passed four of his eight GCSEs including maths in which he was graded a 5.

"I passed four out of eight which is half way, which is good.

"I thought I would have failed all of them, so I'm happy, I really am."

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