Councillor Kevin Guy addresses the turbulant few years school leavers have had whilst acknowledging their successes on A level results day:

Young people were among the hardest hit by Covid and our school leavers receiving their A level results today deserve huge congratulations. They have shown great perseverance coping with disruption to their education as the first year group to sit the exams since the start of the pandemic. Congratulations and thanks must also go to all our schools, staff, parents and carers, who have supported students through such challenging times. Many will now be looking forward to continuing their studies at university or taking up apprenticeships or pausing to consider what their next steps are. For those students whose results aren’t what had been expected please don’t panic or worry, there is a huge amount of advice and guidance you can tap into on the Education Hub (https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2021/08/06/i-didnt-get-the-grades-i-need-what-do-i-do-now/) . Another group hit hardest during the pandemic were our older and more vulnerable residents as well as our care workers who worked under really challenging circumstances. So I am really delighted that the Council’s Extra Care services have been rated Good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) (https://newsroom.bathnes.gov.uk/news/extra-care-housing-services-rated-good-first-inspection) in their first inspection since being taken over by Bath & North East Somerset Council. The inspectors said our five extra care services based at Avondown House, The Orchard and St John’s Court in Bath, Hawthorn Court in Keynsham and Greenacres Court in Midsomer Norton were safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The report highlighted the caring nature of staff and the way the service helps people maintain their independence while still getting the support they need. Well done to all our care teams. And for anyone interested in playing a part to improve people’s lives our ‘Proud to Care’ website (https://jobsandcareers.bathnes.gov.uk/proudtocare) has plenty of job opportunities. Over the summer our Clean and Green teams (https://newsroom.bathnes.gov.uk/news/turning-neighbourhoods-clean-and-green-support-community-groups) have been out across the area litter doing a great job dealing with graffiti, cleaning road signs, additional litter picking and responding to reports on Fix My Street. The team also works with volunteers on community action days. You can get in touch with them if you want to organise a community event at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .