It is among those days we never ever really missed during the COVID years. To be fair, it never truly went away. Despite the anticipated grades there was still an aspect of finalising them by the SQA (and in many cases downgrading them) to make sure that students did still have a degree of worried waiting in August. However this year it is back in all it’s anxiety ridden glory– for students and, in a different way, for teachers also.
It would be absurd to believe everything else was back to typical though. Pupils had to battle with patchy presence, in many cases a minimal standard from previous years of missed out on work because of pandemic knowing (believe skills obtained in S 3/ 4 being established and checked in S 5 and typically durations of their routine instructor being absent as well. In addition to every one of that remember this year’s Greater prospects were resting a test for the very first time ever before– with all the stress and anxiety that goes along with that.
Headteacher Billy Burke wrote a great item in TES this week on the notion that looking at headline accomplishment information, specifically the number of Highers acquired, is an error since pupils now have access to a wide range of programs such as National Progression Awards and various other SCQF qualifications that don’t fit nicely right into the nonsensical organization table story. That’s true, and it’s important we check out the alternative achievements of students not simply the qualities printed on their certificates.
However, for most students, those qualities truly do matter– to them specifically. Rightly or incorrectly (and I would certainly suggest wrongly, keep reading) these qualities are something the majority of them agonise over.
No doubt on outcomes day we will see the regional authority press workplaces drag out the huge cut-out As and line up their leading performing schools for a shiny jumping picture. We’ll see individuals pouring onto social media to share their #NoWrongPath stories. Neither of these is in itself a negative point, and it is of course definitely real that people can be satisfied, successful and attain terrific points without complying with the path they visualize they would certainly adhere to at 16
Nevertheless, I have actually constantly located the #NoWrongPath a little bit off for youths on results day, albeit well intentioned. If they didn’t get the outcomes they expected or wanted they are understandably devastated. No amount of telling them “it doesn’t truly matter due to the fact that I failed X and look at me currently!” is going to help, and from pupils I’ve spoken to in the past they just discover it a little bit patronising.
Rather than reminding youths that test results aren’t whatever every time we provide their exam results, what we need to do is look at why we placed them in this position in the first place. If every one of these individuals who attained success in spite of not doing in addition to they hoped at high school really thought that, after that why are they not clamouring to just alter the system that creates this anxiousness to begin with?
Why do we remain to drive a lot of senior phase learning in the direction of a collection of tests that capture a tiny portion of the skills and expertise they have gained in the preceding years?
Why do we continue to steer our curriculum in the direction of a narrow focus on just how to pass tests and how to get skills to answer specific questions rather than skills that have a sensible, real world application and are useful for the rest of their lives?
I’m except a second disregarding the view behind #NoWrongPath. It’s additionally completely ideal to state that the occupation you end up doing usually births no resemblance to the one you gone for at high school. I became a teacher at 30 having done numerous random jobs up till that point and I do not regret any one of those profession moves.
Yet possibly it’s time we put some booster rockets under those strategies to reassess the role exams play in the instructional trip. Or else we’ll rebrand the nationwide agencies, appoint the exact same people to brand-new functions, play around the sides of what our assessment system appears like and each year in August we’ll still have actually burnt out youths nervously waiting that brownish envelope * or ping ** with what they at least think will certainly determine their future life opportunities.
Best of good luck to them all tomorrow though. I boast of my great deal who worked extremely hard in challenging conditions. They are entitled to just the most effective.
* Yeah I know minimal of them will be waiting for the actual message
** Yeah I know no one has their phone off silent nowadays