Ines Alves who sat a chemistry GCSE exam hours after escaping from Grenfell Tower fire discovers she got an A grade in the exam
A TEEN who sat a chemistry GCSE exam hours after escaping the burning blaze at Grenfell Tower is celebrating this morning after achieving an A grade.
Ines Alves was praised for her bravery after taking the test in the same clothes she was wearing when she fled her 13th floor flat with her parents, brother Tiago - and her revision notes.
She revealed her outstanding result live on ITV's This Morning - two months after the devastating inferno killed at least 80 people.
Ines said: "I wasn't expecting to get attention for just sitting a GCSE like everyone else did.
"At the time I just thought it was a normal thing.
"It just goes to show that if you really want something you can always get it no matter what is going on around you.
"I haven't got a clue what I want to do in the future."
The nation was left stunned when brave Ines turned up to take her 9am exam at Sacred Heart School in Hammersmith while firefighters still battled the blaze.
The 16-year-old also gained the highest possible grade, a 9, in her maths GCSE - equivalent to an A* under the old system.
Speaking at Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith, west London, moments after opening her results, she said: "It's good. I'm quite happy with my grades."
She added: "I wish I did more, but then again, I don't know, it hasn't sunk in yet.
"For the exams I missed, I didn't do too well in them overall."
Ines missed two history exams, one RE exam and one physics exam in the days after the fire, which affected her overall grades.
She said she initially thought the fire was "nothing major" and just wanted to sit the paper.
"That's all I had on I had on my mind," she said.
"There was no point me carrying on watching the building burning so I just went in."
Ines also revealed that she gained an A* in her Spanish GCSE, with headteacher Marian Doyle calling her results "fantastic".
She plans to study chemistry, maths, economics and sociology when she begins her A-levels later this year.
Speaking this morning, her brother Tiago Alves said: ";She had been studying for that exam for such a long time.
"She just wanted to get it over and done with.
"I didn't expect her to do it and told her she didn't have to, but she really wanted to.
"I am really proud of her - I have no words for it.
";It seems very surreal even though I knew she was going to get it.
"Maths has been one of our strongest subjects family-wise."
The scale of the Grenfell disaster was "slowly" starting to sink in, she said, adding that support from her school and friends had been "really good".
Asked what she mostly remembered from the night of the fire, she said: "The whole thing. The screaming, people screaming, begging for help."
The family, who owned their 13th-floor flat, are currently living in a hotel, more than two months on from the blaze.
They have received offers of temporary accommodation but want to wait until they are offered a place with the opportunity to turn it into their permanent home.
Ines said staying in a hotel was "not ideal but it's not terrible".
At the time Ines revealed her remarkable classmates showed up at school with clothing, toiletries and money to support her.
She told This Morning: "[What had happened] was always there on my mind but it was like a way of escaping it and not thinking about it.
"They were really supportive. All my friends brought in clothes, toiletries, everything that I would need and gave me money as well."
The teen's heartbroken family lost everything they owned in the massive blaze.
But speaking to Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes today, Ines and her brother said they felt "lucky" compared to some people who have lost everything.
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The teen said: "Personally we are quite fortunate as there are families who don't have anywhere to go, they don't have friends or family close by so we are lucky."
Ines had been sleeping in her bedroom on the 13th floor when her dad woke her to tell her about the fire.
The family, who lived in Grenfell for 11 years, managed to escape before the inferno ravaged the 24-storey tower block, killing at least 30 people.
The schoolgirl said: "It seemed pretty controlled when we got downstairs and then in the space of six minutes it had risen up to six flats above and it was just uncontrollable.
"Everyone was screaming, crying, it was just horrible."
Yesterday it was revealed some Grenfell Tower victims may never be identified because their remains are so badly damaged.
Pathologists have used dental records, fingerprints and DNA to give a name to many who died in the inferno in June.
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