The exam season is almost at an end.
For us, in English, it is. Done. Dusted. Just the ‘dar-dar-dar-DAH-DE-DAR-DAH-DE-DAR’ of the approaching Imperial Cruiser to wait upon now.
August’s end. The end for some and new hopes for others.
Now’s the time to crank up the pressure on Year 10. Put the scare into them. I’ve had a year of Year 11s only partly engaged in the hyperdrive to GCSE success. The stalwarts who stuck with it will be fine, but I despair for that kid who delighted only in leaning back on his chair legs and the other who can pull all topics round to inappropriate sex references, or entertain with his random stories of finding sheep on the front porch in the middle of the night. It was entertaining, but my blood rose. I remember it rising.
I took year 11 on from another, mid-journey. But my Year 10s; they’re all mine. From start to finish. Strike while the iron’s hot, and it’s hot now.
I lay out the year ahead and provide appropriate anecdotes of success and failure helped by the past ten years of memorable howlers:
- The kid who turned up late, out of school uniform, and was turned away. Probably a good thing due to his obvious intoxication.
- The kid who was late, still in bed and only came in because the head of Year went and fetched her.
- The one who just wrote “I don’t know” on a 30 mark question.
- The other who answered every 26 mark question when only one was needed. This is not as uncommon as you might think.
- The one who put their lack of written material down to the invigilators’ squeaky shoes.
- And, lastly, that kid who just drew pictures over the 12 pages of the exam booklet.
“This won’t be you.” I declare. Reassuring myself more than anything else.
Our little horde face a multitude of hurdles. They’re carers; mum’s ill ; dad’s ill; they’re ill; they have jobs; they work on the farm and dad relies on them to be out at 6.30am with the sheep; they don’t have access to the internet at home; they take their brothers, their sisters to school and sometimes get them ready in the mornings. They have social commitments.
In the week of my rant I’m given one bottle of Prosecco, one bottle of cab sav and a box of posh chocs, but the card of thanks is the thing I love the most, especially from that quiet one, the one you gradually begin to think must hate you. Small successes. Some acknowledgment. The child who looks back and recognises the A Level Lit decision came down to our little year 9 class many moons ago. Gold.
The season of sweat and tears is almost entirely over and early lunches will be gone. Come exam season we move lunch to midday causing major issues of fatigue for the last two periods of the day after a pasta lunch. Eyes flutter and we, pupil and Titan, struggle in equal apportionment. But now that is over and we go back to the default settings. Pupils and teachers, alike, can look forward to just one more hour of breathless wonder before the home bell sounds.
Then.
Roll on marking time. Books. Mocks. Printing. Emails. Phone calls home:
“Is your child feeling alright at the moment?”
“Why d’you ask?”
“Maybe because they were late three times in the morning and haven’t done their homework for over a week.”
“She had homework?”
“Yes. There is an online facility that you will have been made aware of at the start of the year so that you know when homework is set, what it is and when it is due.”
“We don’t have a computer.”
“Do you have a smartphone?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s an app.”
So many things are filtered from this conversation. I probably change the filter at least once, maybe twice during the course.
It’s not easy. The pulls on the threads of time come from every direction. Ours and theirs.
We ask: where does the learning really take place?
We have them for at least 30 hours of the week. There are 168 in a week. With an average 8 hours sleepy-time that leaves 112 hours, less 30 hours in school: 82 hours, or 3.41666667r days a week of time outside of school.
So when year 10 ask (because they’re good like that) what they can do to prepare now, for next year, I say: 1 hour. Give up one hour a week.
When you’re eating dinosaurs, you have to do it one bite at a time.
Plus they take ages to cook.
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Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to get in touch and share your responses to the adventure my wife and I are on. Mental health is a rising issue for many and this blog has been, in many ways, a life saver, as has the feedback.
If you missed the article in The Guardian you can find it here:
Tin Can Teacher 
I just love this, but then I am bias.
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