Reaching for the Stars

It’s August 2020 when East Sussex College French tutor Liz Long catches up with A-Level student Jordan Morris-Noone. In real life, that is. It’s been six months since the Covid-19 pandemic brought an abrupt halt to face to face teaching. There have been Zoom calls and emails, but the reunion (albeit socially distanced) is bittersweet for the pair.

A-Level Results Day 2020 has just gone, in one of the most bizarre fashions imaginable, with no group celebrations and proper farewells to tutors. When Liz sits down with Jordan in the sunny gardens of the Depot in Lewes, news of the results are still sinking in. The Government is yet to make their U-turn decision, which sees Teacher Assessed Grades count over the highly criticised computer algorithm.

The future looks bright for the talented French, Drama and Dance A-Level student. And amid celebrating his results with family, virtually with friends, and working endless hours so he is able to live and study in Barcelona (more on that later), Jordan has been busy sharing his experiences with the likes of BBC Sussex local radio, BBC South East Today and Latest TV.

“The Latest TV interview was an absolute blast!” Jordan enthuses about his trip to the Latest TV studios located in the heart of Brighton, a city which Jordan also calls home. “Everyone there was so lovely and kind. Sharing my experience has been an absolute delight and has really made the ending of my A-Levels an unforgettable memory, especially in this difficult time.”

Jordan studied Dance, French and Drama at the Lewes campus of East Sussex College, achieving an A* in Dance, and B grades in French and Drama (pre-government U-turn, his Drama grade was a C). In the autumn, he is going to study Dance at the renowned Institute of the Arts Barcelona!

“I decided to go to Barcelona around Christmas time [2019] when I was starting to look at options for universities,” Jordan explains, looking relaxed after the stress of six months of worry and the unknown. “I knew that I wanted to do Dance - I’ve known that for a long time - but where I’ve gained so much experience in the UK already, I want to try a different experience and gain dance skills in a new place.”

Jordan had a lot of contacts who had gone off to university last September, who he reached out to and asked about their experiences. One of his friends went to Barcelona and the idea appealed to Jordan. “He was telling me about it all and it just seemed so different,” he says, “I felt it would really suit me.”

We sit making the most of the British summer weather, with hot drinks (this is the UK after all), water and celebratory chocolate brownies. Unfortunately this has also attracted the attention of a wasp, who is intent on sharing Jordan’s limelight.

“If Covid-19 hadn’t happened I’d probably be in a different place,” Jordan tells us. “I would have stayed in the UK and perhaps studied a more academic subject at university like French. I’ve tried to take the virus pandemic in my stride. I’ve worked through it so have had two minds about it: every day is still happening [for me] but I know the virus is still about, so it’s been really weird. I try to be as knowledgeable as I can about it but try not to let it affect me and keep going.

“My mum wanted to cut up my passport!” Jordan laughs, recalling the first conversation they had about his university plans.” I told her ‘I’m thinking about studying in Barcelona, and she was like, what? Wow! But I think my parents are happy now. They know that I know what I want to do! That’s the most important thing. We sat down and spoke about it together, looked through all the information, so they were happy after getting to grips with it. Plus, they can come to Spain for a holiday!”

Despite the giant step he’s taking, Jordan found the application process for Barcelona a lot simpler than for universities here in the UK. A practical audition was held at the Rambert Studios last December. The teachers flew over for workshops and Jordan had a one-to-one interview. “They like to take a range of students from across the world,” Jordan says about the IAB. “ I’ve spoken to a few students already and they’re from the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and America. Surprisingly, there’s not a lot of Spanish people that go there.”

So what’s next for the talented 18 year old? “I’m hoping that after my degree I can audition for dance companies, and be a professional dancer,” Jordan shares. “I’m undecided whether that will be back in the UK or not. I definitely want to use my languages and I would like to spend some time in France, especially with its ballet origins. It’s definitely a place to look into after Spain.”

The interview is gatecrashed by a persistent wasp and Jordan takes the opportunity to have some publicity photos taken by Paul Manser, away from the table.

“I think the college was really good at reacting to lockdown quickly,” Jordan says when he rejoins us, helping himself to a drink of water after jumping energetically for the camera. I feel we were one of the first colleges to be up and running online. For some of my friends at other colleges, they were quite slow at that, and things came to a halt really quickly for them, whereas we were still sending work through and communicating with teachers. I think it was a really important thing that the college did. I was thankful to have supportive teachers; we had our online lessons and I was always able to chat to them on email. Work was being transferred back and forth, and if you had any queries you could talk to them openly.”

Jordan pauses to offer Liz the remaining brownie, so there is nothing left to attract the wasp. It remains around us, however, this time taking an interest in the photographer’s camera. Jordan continues, unperturbed, happy to talk about the challenges of lockdown and results day as he can now put it all behind him.

“During lockdown, I spent a lot of hours of training in the week for Dance, and they all went online. That was really difficult, as I had all these Zoom IDs and passwords. I would spend all day Saturday online from 10 til 3, doing four of five different classes, but it showed the people who really wanted to do it and that was key. If you wanted something out of your course, you could still attain that.”

If studying in lockdown wasn’t unforgettable enough, Jordan still has video evidence of his time at home. “I’ve got videos of me dancing around in my dining room, hitting tables and plates flying everywhere,” he laughs.

Away from East Sussex College, Jordan has been training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, every Saturday for the past four years, on their Cat [Centre for Advanced Training] scheme. Like most things during lockdown, his training went virtual: “We graduated on Zoom and that was a very different experience. It was lovely as we had so many guest stars come on and chat to us - really famous choreographers and dance artists. That made the experience amazing.”

Jordan seems wise beyond his 18 years as he reunites with his French tutor Liz. He is able to analyse every situation he is put in, and be sympathetic to everybody involved, from teaching staff, to students and the general public. For him, lockdown has been a blessing in disguise and he has kept his positivity through that. Prior to lockdown, it was a very different story...

“I was in a really difficult position just before lockdown happened,” he says seriously, the enthusiastic smile leaving his face for a short time at least. “I was really struggling to keep up with things at college and there were so many things going on, so many family problems, and because I was going to university in Barcelona I fixated on that, I was having to constantly work so much, and I was working myself down to the bone.

“Covid has allowed me to go into what I want to do. It’s been a real blessing for me. My parents split up in lockdown and that took a toll on me, but I was able to turn that energy into something brand new and positive. IAB has actually given me a grant toward my studies, so that’s been really helpful. Because of Covid, I’ve been able to work full time and save the money for my first full year. I feel really proud of myself for that and I feel like I’ve achieved something, even though everything else stopped. I’ve kept on going and that’s been really important for me.”

Results day was really funny. I remember going to sleep the night before results day and my heart was in my throat. I kept thinking, I don’t know how tomorrow’s going to pan out, I don’t know how the day is going to be.We had no plans to meet friends and share results and celebrate, but it happened the best way it could. It was a busy morning. My phone was buzzing off the hook, with different group chats, talking about results and what was going on. We were all waiting eagerly at our computers for the results email to show up.

It’s been such a difficult past six months but despite that we can still all come together on one day and be proud of ourselves for what we’ve worked for. I know it’s difficult as we haven’t actually sat the exams and it’s difficult to put a place of blame if we’re unhappy. If you take the exam you can come out and say to yourself, I’m really unhappy, I didn’t like that, that was the wrong question for me, I wrote the wrong essay; and you can be mad at yourself. But right now [on 13th August, prior to the U-turn on grading], you’re putting the blame on this imaginary person, some computer that’s got some algorithm to generate results. But we’ve got to be thankful that we’re safe and healthy so far. We’ve got the results. People can go off to uni, and in some cases people weren’t happy with their uni choice even before Covid, and have said, do you know what, I’m going to take that gap year. I need that time to regenerate.I’m really, really happy with my results. I think the majority of people feel that, even though it’s been really difficult, we can go about things in a positive way.

“I think that’s the most important part. You have to try and turn this really awkward energy of this virus into something brand new and positive. I think that is the goal for everyone.

“It’s been really different this year but it’s made it more memorable! I think we’re going to be thankful for that. We’re going to be the year that no-one forgets. It will be nice to look back on in ten years time and we can say, ‘do you know what, at the end of the day, we have survived our way through college’.”

And with that, Jordan thanks Liz again, and bids farewell to Lewes and his time as an ESC student, ready to take on his next challenge.

If you’re inspired by Jordan’s story and have a passion for Dance, Drama or French, check out our courses starting this September at ESC.

Click here to find out more about enrolment at college and for help post GCSE results day.