Up and down the country, thousands of students will be lining up alphabetically, filing into exam halls, sitting at desks with a see-through pencil case and bottle of water with the label taken off (no chance for cheating by writing answers on a label!), waiting patiently while an invigilator walks up and down the rows of desks handing out exam papers. Sitting there with the paper face down, while the clock slowly clicks round to 9am and those final words are spoken. It’s a busy time of year for staff as well as students, and when I tiptoe past the hall on my way back to the exams office, I still get ‘that’ feeling in the pit of my stomach as I sympathise with the students inside whose futures depend on those results.
It’s also a time for kids to become more accident prone. The number of students who have come to us with sprained wrists, twisted ankles, broken fingers etc asking for us to apply for special consideration on their behalf. Parents ring up with the strangest requests for us to let the exam board know that ‘xxx has taken a cold relief tablet this morning and may become sleepy’ or ‘ their hamster died at the weekend and they are still very upset and couldn’t revise properly’. Trust me, we have heard them all. It’s a time for sensible shoes as we try to walk silently down the corridor between the hall and the rest of the school. It’s funny how shoes which walk quietly in town become noisy in the hall and I am frequently seen kicking off my shoes as I enter the corridor and walking barefoot down the link! It’s a time for kids to over react and our poor head of sixth form is fast becoming more of an ‘agony aunt’ with a constant supply of boxes of tissues and sympathy for those who come out of an exam positive that ‘I’ve failed, I know I have, what am I going to do?’ Speaking as a parent whose kids have gone through all this, I know it from that side of the story too and I know how we worry on their behalf and try to keep positive and encouraging, force feeding healthy food and trying to keep them well for the weeks of the exams.
So on a lighter note, let me share a layout I made to remember the day that our daughter moved out of home and into a flat with her boyfriend. Seems like only yesterday she was one of those stressful students …
9 comments:
Oooh just reading that post is giving me butterflies! I've got my first exam in 8 years on Tuesday, and I'm starting to get nervous!
Gosh I can still remember that feeling and it is many years since I took an exam. I regularly used to dream I had got the wrong exam timetable and missed some of mine - and I can still dream that when I'm very stressed!
Thanks for the comment Deb, it'll be exciting to see what Michelle has :)
Love the layout you made for your daughter - doesn't time fly.
My youngest starts her GCSEs in September so we've got another couple of years before the exams again.
xx
I can remember that feeling as well....even though it was more years ago than I care to remember!!!
Love how you've done the flowers on the LO.
Ah Deb, my eldest dd, Grumpy, is one of those sat in those halls, trouble is they seem to do it more often nowadays i.e. this is her third year of them albeit this is the last year - well until AS next year and A levels the year after lol and by then Tattyhead head will be doing them too (she's year 9 currently) Oh my, I think that might be stressful !!
I am so glad that my exam years are far behind me! Great LO Deb..the colours are beautiful
Alison xx
Yep it's that time of year in this house too.
Love that layout you have made and fabulous clustering of the flowers.
I can just picture you tiptoe-ing in your bare feet past the exams room holding your shoes! Love the layout xx
Oh, yes. we are right in the middle of our Gcse's here. I can't get over how short some of the papers are - none of that 3 hour stuff we had to suffer! I seem to be driving him to an exam every 5 minutes - of course he is cool and I am the one feeling sick. I'll be very glad when it's over.
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