A rant

I realised today that revising in 2016 has challenges that I couldn't even have comprehended would exist way back in 1989. I don't remember the massive fuss and pressure to perform - we weren't told we had target grades to meet, there wasn't any guidance on how to revise, no extra classes, no coaching, no briefing sessions for parents. There wasn't even a minimum grade threshold to get into the sixth form - you naturally progressed there.

Now - so much pressure - on the students, because the pressure is on their teachers, because it's on their senior team. Pressure to meet numerical targets. Arbitrary targets. A school system that doesn't instil a natural desire to do the best you can through self motivated work (because that IS what I experienced) but creates young people who are frazzled, self critical, scared that they aren't good enough OR seemingly, just don't care enough to try (and the myriad social, cultural and emotional reasons behind that are heavily influenced by politics as well).

A school system that is driven by politicians who have little understanding of what comprehensive education is, or what it should be. People who apparently can't meet the very standards that they set. People who haven't experienced the joy, terror, frustrations and sheer bloody mindedness that is needed to guide the fragile developing personalities we see every day. People who don't have the personality, presence or charisma to hold the attention of 30 students an hour, 5 hours a day, with another 30 students for form time. People who don't care about the PEOPLE that are at the heart of the education system, at all levels - from SLT (who ARE human and we are not all work shy charlatans who don't understand the meaning of hard work) to teachers (for whom it really is both the best and the worst of jobs, sometimes at the same time) to the students and their parents (both groups of which need support, guidance and sometimes some tough love or just some reassurance that they really are ok).

The people who govern us do not seem to understand that an education system is only as good as the functional human beings who are present in, or graduate from, the system at any one time.

Teachers are falling down, metaphorically speaking. Nothing is ever good enough. The goals don't just move, they change shape and move to other planets. Teachers are exhausted, physically and emotionally. They do not want to do anything other than ensure their students are as successful as they can be, in terms of exam success but, just as importantly, in terms of being rounded human beings who are compassionate, understanding and able to function in a world that seems to become more and more frightening on a daily basis.

Students are also falling down. Extra classes, before school, after school, in the holidays (run by the teachers who are already physically and emotionally spent). Being told that if they don't get to target they aren't good enough. Being told by the media that their hard work doesn't count (in August, every year, when results are published...because exams are just getting easier, right?). Not knowing if they have done enough and not having a fair playing field because they are victims of a zero sum system where the grade boundaries are set AFTER the exams have been marked, by identifying the boundaries that force the results to fit into a norm reference system with a perfect bell curve distribution and 'comparable outcomes'

It's wrong. It's unfair. It is, without question why teachers and students are experiencing more mental health issues.

This is my boy. Explaining to me how his grade will be calculated in one of his GCSEs and how much he will need to squeeze from the exam element in order to secure an A grade.

I couldn't be more proud of him. But his exam results don't influence that. The person that he is - loving, caring, responsible, witty, hilarious, mature...so many characteristics that make him into the man that he is becoming. THOSE are the things that matter.

It is my job as his Mum to ensure he isn't broken by a system that is being dismantled by misguided decisions from people who wouldn't, I am sure, contemplate telling my surgical consultant how to do my surgery next week, but who feel qualified to tell very well qualified adults how to get the best from young people.