\n Oscar Hartland, 16, from Caerphilly, sat his exams at St Martin\u2019s Comprehensive but came away with just two passes an A in music and an E in English.\n<\/p>\n
\n The schoolboy first appeared in the hit BBC comedy, filmed mostly in Barry Island, as a baby, playing the son of Nessa and Smithy, before returning to the role in the 2019 Christmas special and the 2023 finale, where he performed Blackbird by The Beatles in front of 19.1 million viewers.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, despite his TV fame, Oscar admits the classroom was never for him.Oscar Hartland (Neil the baby) with Barry\u2019s Knock off Nessa (Image: Knock off Nessa (Karyn Barrett)) Speaking about his experience, the child star said: \u201cIs an executive at one of the top recording labels going to ask me about my GCSE results? I don\u2019t think so.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I\u2019ve always wanted to make it as a musician in a band, and I\u2019m ready to do it the hard way. I\u2019m a grafter and I\u2019ll tough it out.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Oscar insists his low grades had nothing to do with his TV career.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI just hated school. Classroom learning is not my thing. During my school years, my head was in other places. Music was always my thing, and I got an A, so I\u2019m happy with that.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI feel strongly that pupils like me who are not academically minded are being failed by the education system. I got a whopping two GCSEs, but I\u2019m happy with that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Oscar Hartland (Neil the baby) with Barry\u2019s Knock off Nessa and young fans (Image: Knock off Nessa (Karyn Barrett)) Oscar has already set his sights firmly on the stage. At 14, he reached the semi-finals of The Voice Kids and has also recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios near Monmouth, where Oasis and Queen made some of their biggest hits.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last\u00a0weekend, he performed at the Camper Calling Family Music Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon, while next month, he will reunite with his Gavin and\u00a0Stacey co-stars at the National Television Awards at London\u2019s O2 Arena.\n<\/p>\n
\n His mother, Kirsty Pritchard-Hartland, said she couldn\u2019t be prouder.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: \u201cHe wasn\u2019t too worried about his GCSE results. He\u2019s only ever wanted a career in showbusiness \u2013 and he\u2019s well on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Hartland, 16, from Caerphilly, sat his exams at St Martin\u2019s Comprehensive but came away with just two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-94939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}