Word of the Week- Exams

 

I know this is very early in the academic year to be talking about exams but Matthew is starting his GCSE mock exams next week. The school have scheduled them over 2 weeks and encouraging the year to go into school for 8.00am to start revision (with the promise of a free breakfast), There are then 2 exams per day and revision sessions inbetween and at the end of the day. The school day has been extended until 5.00pm for this time for the Year 11’s. They are then expected to come home and do at least 1 ½ hours every night. That is putting a lot of pressure on already stressed out children on top of the extended day which is longer than the standard working day.

Not only that there are a second set of mocks planned for March before the real thing starts in May.

 Now I know exams are important but there is just so much emphasis on the school results and the league tables I sometimes think that the children are forgotten in all of this. I have experienced this first hand as a teacher and have had to deal with stressed out and unhappy pupils.  When I was at school I was left to my own devices when it came to revision and how much or how little you did.

 From my experience, a child who is motivated will put in the effort regardless of how much pressure is put on them (Think Hermoine Granger in Harry Potter). A child who is switched off and doesn’t care won’t do anything anyway. It is the ones who are somewhere in the middle or whose parents are putting too much emphasis on the exams that are the ones who suffer the most.

 Matthew knows what he needs to do, and the mock exam results will either back that up or give him a wake up call. I am not putting any pressure on him to revise for too long as after a long day revising in school he needs a break.

 Not every child is academically minded or can do well in exams, and it needs to be remembered that GCSE results are the ‘be all and end all’ of anything. Exams can be re-sat or an alternative studied for and there are enough people in the public eye who have done extremely well without having any paper qualifications.

 Also this week I got my results for the exam I sat in September and it is with relief that I passed as I really did not want to re-sit that particular one. I just need to rearrange to re-sit the one I did not pass in June. I was waiting to get the results to see whether I would just need to re-sit or whether I would change my learning provider and do the new syllabus.

Linking up with Annie.

How has your week been?