This week, thousands of teenagers will open an envelope and make a split-second judgement on their future.

Amy Wray, a Huddersfield businesswoman, remembers the disappointment of not getting the grades she hoped for.

Twenty-three years on, she knows those results predicted almost nothing about where she would end up.

In 2010, Amy began building a business from a back bedroom, with no savings and a borrowed camera from her dad.

Over the next 15 years, that company — Applegate Properties — would grow into a nationally recognised, award-winning estate agency, picking up titles including Business Woman of the Year and Best UK Agency, before being sold for a six-figure sum late last year.

“I received my A-level results 23 years ago and not once, in all of those years, did anyone ever ask what they were,” said Amy.

“Not during the countless pitches, negotiations, awards ceremonies or boardroom meetings, did a client or a colleague ever ask about my grades.

“What they asked instead was what my business could offer them, how I led my team and whether or not I achieved results.”

Amy, now a Huddersfield-based business coach and wellness consultant, is at pains to stress this isn’t an argument against education.

“A-levels matter,” she said. “And for plenty of career paths they remain one of the doors people need to walk through.

“Anyone who has worked hard for good results this week should know that the work was worth it.

“That being said, it’s a reminder that a results slip is a snapshot, not a sentence,” she added.

“It measures how you performed in an exam hall at 17. It doesn’t measure how you’ll perform under pressure at 30, how you’ll lead a team through a crisis, or whether you’ll build something that lasts.”

Amy says her own education came from a farm gate, a takeaway counter and countless mistakes in her own company.

At 11, she was helping on her grandfather’s farm. By 14, she was running his livery yard — handling customers, schedules and high expectations, all before she had sat a single exam.

“It was my first taste of running something for other people,” she said.

By 16, Amy was working the Friday night rush in a local takeaway. “Nobody teaches you time management like a busy kitchen,” she added, picking up how to multi-task, long before adding it to her CV.

At 18, Amy scrubbed pans in a hospital kitchen to fund her first car whilst learning all about accountability.

“It taught me how to show up and pull my weight when no-one’s watching,” she said.

When she entered full-time employment, Amy applied for jobs she thought she could do, never expecting any of them to become a lifelong career.

Her message to this year’s school-leavers is simple: “Lower the stakes. Find a job you can learn from, enjoy earning your own money and that gives you room to figure out the rest.”

Those early experiences, she says, taught her more about running a business and being part of a team than any qualification could have.

They gave her instincts she still relies on today — the kind she can’t teach a client from a textbook, only from having lived them.

Amy now works with business owners and their leadership teams and business owners across Yorkshire and beyond, helping them achieve performance success without sacrificing their health and wellbeing.

“Having been the founder carrying more than anyone around me realised, I know what it costs when the person at the top burns out chasing growth — and my work is about helping clients build that success sustainably, using what I learned the hard way.”

Amy added: “I have enjoyed a successful career learning skills I can now pass on to others, and none of this started with a grade.

“To anyone opening an envelope this week, missing your target grade isn’t the end of your story – it’s just one data point, on one day.

“Some of the most capable, resilient people I have worked with flopped on paper, but it didn’t stop them and it won’t stop you either.

“Your life will be far longer, and far more interesting, than this week’s results suggest.”

Amy Wray is a business performance and wellness consultant based in Huddersfield, working with CEOs, founders and senior leadership teams across the UK.

Having built and sold her own award-winning company over 15 years, she now helps business owners create sustainable growth without sacrificing their health.

Find out more at www.amy-wray.co.uk.