GCSEs: The Calm Before The Storm.

I always feel slightly nervous as results day approaches for a number of reasons… Will the school do well overall? Will we have done enough to avoid the attention of Ofsted for a while? Will my department have done well? Will my classes have done well? Will my predicted grades have been good enough?

Mostly though, there are always a handful of pupils who I feel particularly nervous for. They may have worked really, really hard for their entire school career and deserve the best grades available. Will they get what they deserved? A few may have had a very turbulent year outside of school and struggled to keep on top of things, but still deserve a good grade. Will they get it? There may be a few with a boatload of potential, but very little self esteem. Will they receive a grade that finally proves to them that they COULD do it?

This year is particularly poignant for me, because it’s the first year group that I have seen all the way through the school. I joined the school when they did. We were new together. Also, quite unusually, I have taught the same 2 sets (and therefore mostly the same 60 students) all the way from Year 7 to Year 11. It’s very difficult to not become emotionally attached to these students when you have seen them so much.

Additionally, I rudely abandoned them half way through their final year to have a baby (which I did and do still feel horrifically guilty about), although they have assured me that I am now forgiven. But as a complete and utter control freak, this has just made me all the more nervous about the grades they will receive next week. I possibly ruined the continuity of their teaching and progress. Of course in reality, these are hormonally charged teenagers and the majority of them probably didn’t notice that it wasn’t me teaching them anymore. Or thought I had suddenly aged substantially overnight, when a more mature teacher took over their lessons.

The thing is, without meaning to seem over the top, I have watched these young people grow up. I have watched them grow physically and emotionally. I have watched them make best friends, lose friends, fall out with friends. I have witnessed the soap opera of them discovering the opposite sex, gaining and losing girlfriends and boyfriends. I have seen them have the best times of their lives and I have seen them crying their eyes out. I have seen them and their families experience some truly terrible times and I have seen them achieve some truly incredible things. I have watched them work extraordinarily hard, even when the tide is against them. I have seen them not have a care in the world and I have watched them try to make important decisions that could govern the direction their lives will take. I have met all of their parents multiple times. I have laughed with them and I have yelled at them. But overall, I have seen them become delightful, polite, mature young people.

I don’t consider myself to be anything special in terms of education. I teach to the best of my ability and I genuinely want the very best for each and every student in my class. But I don’t know the detailed ins and outs of education. I don’t keep up with new educational developments by following inspirational educational people on Twitter. I don’t know much about politics, only the basics and can’t argue in any depth with anyone about what’s right and wrong. But I know that something – a lot of things – are wrong with education at the moment. I know that for an absolute fact because of all the things I have written here. I have seen it. I have lived it. I have tried to overcome it and I have tried to fill in the cracks created by the government so that those students don’t feel the brunt of these crazy, ill-informed decisions that have plagued their high school career.

I also know this because I work with countless incredibly intelligent, talented, driven and committed people. People who DO know an incredible amount about education and politics and whom I admire greatly. People who are greatly under valued, but continually fight to the bitter end to ensure the best for these young people. I know that if they are pissed off, then there really is something to sit up and pay attention to.

I have seen the devastating outcomes of this political craziness in previous years on results day, when students that deserve so much, have received so little. Not because they haven’t worked hard, but because something/someone completely out of their control has thought them worth so little. Those people making those decisions should be in schools on results day. They should be watching these young people crumble when they haven’t got their D, C, B, A, A* that they have worked so incredibly hard for. They should be the people having to answer their questions about why this has happened. They should have to talk to their tearful parents and give them a pat on the back.

Perhaps more importantly, they should also be there to witness the absolute joy of the students who have achieved what they set out to. And they should see how this makes them want to learn MORE, to move onwards and upwards and make the best of themselves.

So before the media hype begins next week… before the league tables…. before the papers decide that the exam papers aren’t hard enough and the students are too dumb… before teachers and schools are tarnished as the bad guys, as ‘coasting’, as letting students down…. before the political debates begin,  I just wanted to give a bit of time to those lovely young people who, whilst all this commotion is going on, have tried their very best for the last 5 years. Have undergone enormous pressure, countless exams and the never-ending turmoil of being a teenager. Who are PEOPLE and deserve to be treated as such. I hope that you have been treated kindly and that you receive all that you deserve.

Good luck.