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I recently had a discussion with a student about how difficult it was for her when the main topic of conversation among her peers was what grades they got in their last assessment.

The student was happy for her peers when they got high grades, but also felt upset and disappointed in herself when she was getting lower grades – even though she was trying her best and still passing.

How to respond to that conversation? How to support that student? It’s all very well to tell her that her grades do not define who she is and that once she leaves school and moves on to her next stage in life, no one will ask her what grades she left school with. But, as this student said to me, “I understand that, and I know that, but this is the life that I am living right now, and it’s hard.”

School grades do not define you

In our school, we have a fantastic pastoral leadership team, with social-emotional counselling experts, as well as grade-level leaders who support students with academics and well-being. So all our students are supported in whatever area of life they are finding hard. But what else can we, as university counsellors, do to support these students?

I have to be honest – I don’t know. I truly believe that grades and university name do not define who you are and what impact you can have on the world. This student who spoke with me is kind, gentle, mature, supportive of all her peers, thankful for her current educational opportunities and driven to make a difference. These attributes are what will define her as a person entering the unknown world of work and ensure that she will make a difference to the world in some way in the future.

But I am 51 years old and have seen a lot of life, witnessed a lot of changes in the world and have the luxury of being able to look back on my younger years with greater clarity. How, then, can we authentically support our students so that when they graduate they are happy with whatever score they get, whether it is higher or lower than their peers?

School alumni: setting a positive example

Having a strong alumni programme – featuring alumni with a range of graduation grades, future pathways and success stories to date – can help. Tapping into this network and regularly inviting them to speak to current students can help reinforce the message we’re trying to convey.

I can think of a range of alumni from my school who have great stories – from the Oxford graduate who now works for a non-profit organisation to the student who didn’t achieve the full IB diploma but went on to higher education in the UK and currently works for a leading global household appliance manufacturer. I also know students who left school at 16 and entered apprenticeships, such as the 16-year-old currently in their second year of an apprenticeship as a software engineer with Google – and loving it.

Collecting stories and articles about people in the world who have made noteworthy differences and looking at their educational histories – exploring these stories during a lesson and having discussions around the key learnings – could also change the mindset of “only grades matter”. Nelson Mandela didn’t go to university, for example, and Coco Chanel revolutionised the fashion industry but had no formal education. And let’s not forget Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and, of course, Greta Thunberg.

Rewriting the narrative

We live in a society that over many years has formed a narrative about the crucial importance of a university education – and by “university” we only really mean the top 50 or so universities in the world. Our world is changing rapidly, and this narrative really does not fit any more.

I don’t believe that we, as university and career counsellors, will be able to make a change overnight to the narrative that our students are currently living in – maybe not even in our lifetimes. But what we can do is work as a global collective, teaching our students, with real-world examples, that grades do not and will not define you or your impact in the world.

Pushing this message consistently, effectively and without ever giving up will hopefully mean that, one day in the future, students will no longer come to their counsellors in tears, saying, “my friends are all getting better grades than me and are going to go to better universities than me”.