Five Things All Young People (and their Parents) Should Know About GCSEs
1. It is not possible for everyone to succeed in their GCSEs. The exam results are referenced against earlier cohorts, meaning that around 30% will get failing results every year. If everyone does very well one year, they'll shift the pass mark so that some will still fail.
2. You can take GCSEs at any age. There is nothing magic about taking them all at age 16. Those who are older (autumn born) do better on average than those who are younger (summer born) when they take them. It is not a level playing field.
3. Learning does not 'only count' if you have a GCSE in it. If you are a passionate musician or linguist or artist, this will be much more important in your life than whether you have a GCSE in music or French or art. Don't let an exam result convince you that you are no good at something.
4. GCSEs can be a stepping stone to college. It is rare for a college to require more than five or six. Some colleges will take you with no GCSEs. Doing nine is something some schools insist on but it isn't essential.
5. A GCSE is a measure of how you performed in a particular set of tests at a particular time in your life. It is not a measure of your worth nor a reflection of your future potential.
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A friend is a TA in a large school. She commented how soul destroying it is to push and support kids that struggle so much at school and... they end up with almost no qualifications anyway. All that self esteem bashing for no outcome at all. That really made me shiver. Couldn’t that time with those beautiful young souls have been better spent?
I remember being told (repeatedly) how important GCSEs were and if I failed them I was a failure. We had to keep our results in our “Record of Achievement” and this would be the most important document in our lives beyond school.
I didn’t get the results I should have of course and beyond a short stint at 6th form and college (where I presumably needed some GCSEs to get in) I was never once asked for that document or how many GCSEs I had. The results I got (or didn’t get) had no real bearing on my life beyond school and it’s dangerous to convince children otherwise.
Those results didn’t stop me from having a successful working life and should not be used to stop anyone else from doing the same.