Nearly nine years have passed since I sat, like thousands of school pupils across Scotland, waiting on my higher results arriving. 

When they did, those results surpassed every expectation - and those of my school and, at the end of S5, I had achieved 5 As.

But, at 16 years of age, I was not ready to take the next step to university.

The option was to stay on and complete sixth year but I immediately faced a problem.

My school, St Andrew's Secondary in the east end of Glasgow, didn’t offer any Advanced Highers because of low uptake.

I was facing a dead end, until the door opened at Glasgow Caledonian University's Advanced Higher Hub or, as we called it, 'the hub'.

Opened three years earlier in 2012, the hub gave pupils the chance to study Advanced Highers alongside other young people from schools across Glasgow.

I studied Advanced Higher Biology, Maths, and Modern Studies, spending three days of my week at GCU, and two days back in Carntyne at school.

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Being in classes with pupils from all over Glasgow, I made friends beyond my pocket of the east end for the first time and figured out where my grades could take me.

The teaching was different than at school. For one thing, we didn’t wear uniforms and called the teachers by their first names. More importantly we were treated not just as pupils who had to learn a curriculum, but as people genuinely interested in learning about a subject. People with a voice that the teachers, and other pupils, genuinely listened to.

It was in my modern studies classes, learning about Scotland’s political history that I decided to apply for politics at university. My teacher, John, spoke to me about history and politics in a way that no teacher had before, and I learned that my opinion on what was happening in my country and the wider world was worth something.

Being listened to, and encouraged to speak, helped me develop the confidence and assurance to make me the person I am today. Without the hub’s ethos of putting students’ voices first, I wouldn’t have taken the next steps I did and wouldn’t be where I am today.

I ended up applying to Oxford university on the recommendation of one of my teachers at the hub and became the first person ever in my school to apply to Oxford or Cambridge and the first in my family to apply to university.

A few years later, I graduated with a first-class degree from Oxford in Philosophy and Politics.

Unfortunately, this week, it was announced that the hub is closing due to cuts.

Without the hub, and the qualifications and confidence it gave me, I wouldn’t have studied at Oxford. I wouldn’t have achieved my degree. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do today – supporting young people to get to university and into work with schools and colleges across Scotland and the UK.

Without the hub, it wouldn’t have been hard for me to go to Oxford, it would have been impossible.

When this service closes down, you can guarantee that some young people in Glasgow who would have gone on to study advanced Highers won’t do so. Advanced Highers will be carried out online and pupils won’t be part of the hub community that provided my friends and I with so much in terms of self-belief and academic skills.

I still meet up with my old friends from the hub every few months. I can see the impact the scheme had on them.

For all of us, the hub put us where we are and encouraged us to think more deeply about what we could achieve and where school can take us.

I’m saddened that future generations of young people across Scotland won’t get the same opportunities.

Jack Wands was the first pupil from St Andrew’s Secondary in Glasgow's east end to go to Oxford University and attended Glasgow Caledonian University's celebrated Advanced Higher Hub. The hub will close due to funding cuts.