For those of you not familiar with the education system in England - sorry if you already know this, but I don't know what the equivalents are in the States and Australia *looks embarassed* Ahem, so GCSEs are the end of school exams you take when you are 16. A-Levels are the ones you take at sixth-form college when you are 18, and you will have already received half the marks for these in the form of AS-Levels the year before. Your GCSEs determine your admission to college, and your A-Levels determine your admission to university. Both sets of qualifications are obviously useful in the job market too. I prefer to think of them in the Harry Potter sense - GCSEs are more or less the same as OWLS only in less exciting subjects, and A-Levels are more or less the same as NEWTS, again in less exciting subjects.
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| School never was as cool as HP, but at least I never had an invigilator like her |
This year's A-Level results were out last week and the majority of the youth we know got into their chosen universities with their results. It wasn't happy news for everyone but for those who didn't get what they wanted they are trusting in God and making plans to fit around this unexpected and disappointing time, and we pray that they will come through stronger and even more prepared for university.
This year's GCSE results came out today, and my Facebook news feed has been alive with joyful status updates. I smile and like the happy statuses, wishing them, "Congrats!" They all thought they were going to fail, or at least mess up really badly. I think, "Oh youth, they're not that bad, you won't have failed, and you'll be ready to go to sixth-form college. It will all be fine." They are, after all, a bright bunch. But then I remember how I felt about my GCSEs and my A-Levels. I was almost physically sick just moments before I received my results on both occasions, not having eaten properly or slept well for several days.
Let's go back in time and take a peek at how I coped with the news of my results:
The month is August. The year is 2001. The time is 9:58am. I am on holiday with my family in the Lake District. I am thinking, "Could Mum and Dad have chosen a worse time to go on holiday?" We've just moved house, there's a heatwave down south and heavy rain up north, and more importantly I am waiting to find out if I've made it into my sixth form college of choice. I haven't been able to enjoy milkshakes or big holiday meals because my stomach has shrunk with anxiety. I couldn't care less about Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth because all I want to know is if I managed to get an A in English Literature and all this culture isn't helping!
It is results day. My Head of Year, Mrs M, promised she would call at 10am with my results. We are driving round and round in the unrelenting rain, up and down fells, desperately seeking a mobile phone signal. No luck. I begin to panic.
Then suddenly one bar appears on my phone. We're on a steep, narrow lane, but praise God, there is a lay-by ahead. The bar flickers and dies and then reappears as my dad pulls in. Will it stay?
10:08am. Mrs M still hasn't called. What's taking so long? I need my results. I can't expect my family to sit here all day with me waiting to hear. The tension in the car is growing. My mum passes me a pen and a tiny piece of paper from within the glovebox, so I can write my results down. 10:11am and everyone holds their breath as the phone chirrups. By this time I am silently sobbing with stress.
Mrs M is as chirpy as ever as she quickly rattles off my grades for each subject. I'm so shocked that I achieved an A* for Drama and a B for my hardest subject, Maths, and an A for French (take that Mrs E for moving me down a set!) that I start crying more. As Mrs M congratulates me and says goodbye, my crying is more than my parents can take. My dad leans back and grabs the list from me and he my mum read it together. "You've done brilliantly! What you are crying about you silly girl?" they exclaim. We leap out of the car to hug and kiss. I am going off to college to do my A-Levels to set me up for drama school, hooray!
Fast forward two years.
The month is August. The year is 2003. I am in a car with a group of friends on the way to college to get our results. We've hardly slept. We were at a small party the night before, and despite an attempt to catch a few hours, sleep has eluded us. I'd had too much guarana punch, it was really hot, I felt sick with fear, and the room I was 'sleeping' in was next to the bathroom that had the loudest cistern and pipework in the entire country.
But finally we are on our way to get those results. The stakes are high. I've decided that I don't want to go to drama school but that I want to go to university, a good university, to become a Classicist. I've chosen a University of London college. I need decent grades. My AS-Levels were not amazing, and I have done a few retakes. Were they worth it? Have I done enough to get through?
When we get to college we are shown to the main hall, and shuffled into a queue depending on where in the alphabet our surname comes. We have to patiently wait our turn. There are people smiling, cheering, crying, and looking dumbstruck. Which look will I have?
I sit down in front of the kindly looking woman for the 'H to M' surnames, and she reads out my grades. Three Bs. I got three Bs. More than what I needed. I'm in! I'm going to Royal Holloway to study Ancient History. So I burst into tears. The woman looks aghast. "That's good, three Bs are good. It says here you needed BCC, and you've got BBB." I smile through my tears, acknowledging this, attempting to point out that I've just been so worried that I wouldn't achieve that. I regain my composure and leave to let the next panic-stricken student receive their results.
Outside the hall the college is abuzz. One of my best friends got one of the top 5 grades in the country for English! A local newspaper wants her picture, and then they want mine too. They want to interview a range of students, to know our grades and where we're off to next. The whole thing is overwhelming and exciting. There is much cause for celebration.
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| Royal Holloway Classics Class of 2006. Try and spot me, I look like a goon. |
So, GCSEs and A-Levels? At the tender ages of 16 and 18 these were a big deal. The stakes are even higher now. Most good universities require more than one A at A-Level for you to get in because demand for places has massively increased. My old course now asks for ABB. It didn't ask for BCC in my day because it was an easy course but because it wasn't that popular, but even my year, the Class of 2006, were declared to be the biggest the Classics Department at Royal Holloway had ever had, and after that the numbers just kept growing, so the entry grades had to as well.
I'm happy for our youth that have done well, especially when the pressure is higher than ever on them. I hope that those who got their GCSE results today use their time at college as an opportunity to really think through what they would like to do next. When I was 16 I saw my dreams of becoming an actress as set in stone, but college changed that for me, and I realised that I didn't want to let my love of history go.
I also hope that university is amazing for those who will be starting this September, and for those who won't be, especially not by choice, will have a year of experiences that will shape them and give them direction in their future studies.
I can look at them and think in that annoying adult way, "Why were they so worried? They've got their whole lives ahead, and there is always a chance to improve," and "They're only GCSEs for goodness sake," but the reality is that I was just the same, that doing well in my GCSEs and A-Levels was so important to me - I actually thought I would die if I failed - and that our youth have more than just cause for celebration in coming through the other side better than they had expected.
Harry Potter photo from BBC News. Graduation photo my own.
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