A Bilborough College student achieved two A*s and an A grade despite losing two years’ worth of A-level work in a fire which left her homeless a week before her exams were due to start.
Eloise Siani Djiajkou has been living in temporary accommodation with her family in New Basford, Nottingham, since the blaze broke out in May this year and left their house severely smoke damaged.
The 18-year-old said she was thrilled with her grades in English Literature, Psychology and French, which mean that she can go on to Nottingham Trent University to study Psychology.
She said: “I lost all of my notes from every subject, which was hundreds and hundreds of pages and two years of work, because they were damaged by the smoke from the fire, everything was just black. English was really hit and miss for me because I lost my revision notes. The teachers helped me, they spent extra time with me before the exams and gave me lots of notes.
“Fortunately after the fire I was able to get my Psychology textbook from my house and a lot of what I needed for that exam was online but for my other subjects I had help from my teachers and I literally locked myself in a room and revised. My cat died in the fire too. It was so stressful in the run up to my exams but I knew I just had to do them.
The fire broke out at Eloise’s three-storey home in New Basford, Nottingham, while she was in her room on the top floor.
She said: “I was at home on my own and I was just in my room when I heard the smoke alarm go off. I thought I’d left the cooker on but when I went downstairs it was the fridge that was on fire, it was caused by an electrical fault. I just ran outside and called the fire service.”
The teenager said she was surprised when she received her results.
She said: “I was quite shocked when I found out what my results were. I got them in an email from college and it arrived at 5.30am. I was awake and I thought I would just check my email and it was there. I didn’t wake my mum up straight away but when she got up I told her and she was really proud. She made me a nice breakfast.”