Counting values greater than or equal to those in another column

I'm setting up a data sheet for my school and I want to be able to count students on or above their target on a series of test throughout the year. Please see attachement

I have managed to get half way there by using a combination of OR and COUNTIF functions (columns L and M) but the problem is the targets and grades that will be imput are in the form of 6A,6B,6C etc where 7A>7B>7C>6A>6B>6C>5A>5B>5C>4A>4B>4C>3A>3B>3C etc. etc.

Is there any way of imposing this rule across the spreadsheet so that it recognised 6A>6B because at the moment it thinks 6B is higher than 6A.

Any help much appreciated.

You could convert a graded score to a numeric with the formula:

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This will convert 3A to 303, 3C to 301, 7A to 703, and so on. You might have to put this formula into a hidden column, so the users won't see them but your formula will evaluate them correctly.

Thanks for your response. I would just be wanting to see if each test was above or below target in its own right. I would be gathering data on 6 individual ones throughout the year.