GCSEs and summer colds

It is a long time ago I was in the position of today's 16 year old. waiting for those dreaded results. But today was my god daughters turn and that of a few friends, and I remembered that dreaded feeling of opening the envelope. In my case it was followed by the sickening disappointment that my last five years weren't worth the paper they were written on. I had a back up plan though and a year later I was in the same position but this time the results were far more to my liking. But what I have noticed this time round is something that wasn't there in my day. Peer and parental pressure!

In my day there was certain expectations, be we always had a back up plan and it was no great hassle if you did a year of resits, or  in my case actually got to do the subjects I originally wanted. But now its a matter of not if you got any grades above C well done its how many A or A* you got and basically anything below a B isn't worth anything. Being stuck on  duvet day, as well as the dreaded summer cold has finally found where I have been hiding, I have had the time to peruse various college options on behalf of my god daughter, and boy was it an eye opener. All the labelling of academic achievement that in the 1980's and 90's had been removed is back with force. To be honest there is less cut throat competition in the Olympics than getting your off spring through to the next stage of education. I guess I was lucky I had been subjected to such a bad experience through out my formative education give or take 3 years when I was put in a junior school that understood me, my family had already accepted my grades weren't going to be reflective of my true possibilities. Hence we had a back up plan of a local college offering subjects I wanted to do and with an adult system of learning far more suited to myself. But if I was in that situation now I wouldn't stand a chance, I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting into college and would have been forced to endure two more years in a place I couldn't stand.

I have spent the day talking to other people about it and its a common thing that is creating some majorly competitive parents who are relying on their offspring to perform to the level of the peer expectations. Whilst I reach for another tissue due to Rudolf nose I am wondering how much the sales of Kleenex have increased due to tears of Joy and in affect disappointment. Whilst some families are out celebrating for achieving the dream for which they have worked bloody hard others are left pondering their options and trying to work out what went wrong. It seems an almost medieval torture of introduction to the adult world of disappointments and failure. I can only feel concern for the youth who are subjected to this level of stress so young. Are we now robbing them of their youth with adult expectations, and if so are we returning to a Victorian era of childhood being nothing more than making miniature adults?

As I write this they are now implying the exam borders are deliberately marking down the grades. So not only do these children struggle to achieve their best they are now being used as pawns in a political game they can not even vote for, Its a nasty enough world out there as we all know, so why expose the next generation to it earlier than they have to be. Even at school they are penalised for ill health despite the fact children's immunities are lower till they are 18, and why do they hold the exams in a season notorious for hay fever suffers. Everything is weighted towards a world filled with failure for these children.

Life is hard, I know that 1st hand as being a chronic illness sufferer it is twice as bad, because no one wants to take the gamble of  employing me due to my sick record, but I am nearly 40 and my experience of life has made me tougher, if you asked me to cope with the life I have now at 16 I doubt I could cope. So as I return to my coughing and sniffing, dreading tomorrows doctors review I pray that all those who have received their results today can find the right path to forward to the next step. Whatever your grades well done to one and all.