Boy who spent summer analysing coronavirus stats gets top GCSE grades
A pupil who became an internet "statistics sensation", after spending the pandemic creating a coronavirus stats website, has been celebrating receiving his GCSE results.
Lloyd Warburton from Aberystwyth said his parents were proud after he received 6 A* grades, 4 As, 1 B and a P2 for his Welsh Baccalaureate.
He said: "It was pleasantly surprising. I was really surprised to see almost entirely As. It was brilliant."
The 16-year-old gained more than 15,000 followers on Twitter after creating a popular website displaying the data of Wales' coronavirus case and death stats in each local authority. He started collecting the data from mid-March.
Lloyd's coronavirus graphs have been used by organisations including North Wales Live. The website used Lloyd's work to show when north Wales was on its way to becoming Wales' worst affected coronavirus hotspot.
Lloyd said he has always been interested in numbers, trends and seeing how things change. He said keeping a record of stats during a pandemic is particularly important.
Initially Lloyd only received coffee donations for his work but since then he has received money to support charities and buy books for his future studies.
He said his school, Ysgol Penglais, has been very supportive: "I've had messages from teachers saying they've seen articles about me and they've seen my work and they've said they're proud."
Lloyd received his GCSE results before 9am this morning.
He said: "I was nervous, especially with the A-level fiasco last week because it made it feel like this week would either go wrong or not be the final results. But I'm glad it turned out the way it did, without any more nonsense - except for the BTEC issues."
Lloyd said A-level results were dealt with "quite badly".
The pupil added: "2020 has been different to previous years - you can't compare them. So even if we do standardise, it's still not a fair comparison at all. I think they should've used the teachers' estimated grades in the first place."
As someone with a keen interest in stats and figures, Lloyd said he was concerned about how results were being calculated using an algorithm.
He said: "Teacher assessments are the best way because teachers know your work best. If there has to be a moderation process, there should be another human and not an algorithm because humans can understand work and they don't worry about other factors like deprivation or free school meals - they just focus on what the work is.
"If an algorithm's been programmed with a bias then it will show that bias and I feel like based on what you've seen in the news, the algorithm they used this time was programmed with biases in it - they focus on keeping the trend rather than actually coming up with proper results. With this year being different you can't compare it with previous years even if it does match the trend."
Yesterday, Education Minister Kirsty Williams apologised for the way A-level results were handled.
Lloyd said he plans to study biology, sociology, geography and physics for his A-levels and hopes to go to university to study something scientific after that. He has also already started working on a website for the Senedd elections next year. But for now, it is time for celebration.