EE.UU: Secret Teacher: students need to know bad grades aren’t the end of the world

We’ve all been there. The sleepless night before the big day. The jittery journey to school. The handing over of the envelopes. The faces of parents keen to hear the news. The sound of celebration and sniffling echoing around the hall.

This familiar scene will play out across the country again over the next couple of weeks, as thousands of teenagers collect their A-level and GCSE results.

This year’s students have taken their exams in an educational pressure cooker. They’ve had to cope with new courses, tighter budgets (which have often meant bigger classes and fewer resources) and ever-rising governmental expectations on schools.

Teachers are under colossal pressure to deliver results and it is inevitable that we will have transferred some of this panic to at least some of our students. Little wonder, then, if they feel apprehensive as they line up on results day.

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Many students will have worked hard and been rewarded, and nothing should detract from their achievements. But let’s talk about the ones who are disappointed.

If we have given the impression, consciously or otherwise, that these exams will make or break their lives, then we will have created sense of failure in these young people. Add a load of friends proudly posting their dazzling results on social media, and you have a potentially toxic mix. But they shouldn’t despair. Here’s why.

First, I have marked GCSE and A-level exams. That grade may feel incredibly personal, but it’s not. Whoever marked it may well have marked dozens that day and in all likelihood will themselves have been under pressure to get through as many as they could as the deadline loomed. For them it was just another paper they had to mark before they could have dinner or go to bed. A low mark is not a personal slight.

Second, the reliability of marking is seriously questionable. The scale of the operation is massive: hundreds of people scattered all over the country attempting to mark thousands of scripts at the same level over the course of a few weeks. Many of them never even meet another examiner face-to-face. It’s a fact of life that some of them (sometimes quite a few of them) get it wrong. The exam boards do what they can to mitigate against this, but it’s an uphill battle.

But above that, what do exams actually test anyway? Memory, certainly. They test time management. They test elements of competence in individual subjects. But, ultimately, they really test how good a person is at sitting exams – and this is even more true with the demise of coursework from many areas of the curriculum.

They are infinitely less effective at testing passion, inspiration and potential. And I’ve yet to come across an exam that can assess honesty, loyalty or sense of humour.

I think about my students: the girl who was so nervous that she could hardly speak before giving a presentation but who persevered and nailed it. I think of the boy who put his hand up unprompted to say that he had really enjoyed it. I think of the girl who waited behind after nearly every lesson to clarify or expand on the points raised. And I think of the boy who set up a support and study group for other students who struggled with understanding English.

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Academic glory might not be on the cards for them, but I have no worries whatsoever about them carving their places in the world. They may not leave school with an array of A*s, but they have qualities that will stand them in good stead in whichever line of work they choose to pursue.

And if all that sounds a little airy-fairy, it’s worth stating that, while I can’t deny that academic results can open doors to certain careers, it’s certainly not the case that they are the only route to fulfilment and prosperity. Just look at the recent finding in Australia that plumbers and electricians earn up to twice as much as lawyers.

So good luck with results day. But let’s all of us, teachers, parents and students, whether things go our way or not, remember that there is far more to life.