Please, Dear Postie look and see
Is there a letter in your bag for me?
So sang the Marvelettes in 1961 when the post was reliable and A Level or Highers results always came through the letter box on results day. Limited contact with the school. If you got the grades… jolly good show and off to Uni you would go. If you didn’t there was always the crammer, the resits, training college or an apprenticeship. Pull yourself together and get over it. If you failed to get where you wanted to be; tough.
How different things are today with students welcomed back to school to receive their results and rejoice and commiserate with peers, parents and supportive teachers and counsellors who are now as concerned about their students’ mental health as much as their academic wealth.
The exam classes of 2022, however, have never had it so bad. The pandemic struck. Overnight almost all their teachers went online. Their pupils were expected to follow them. Little consideration given to families who might only have one iPad between them. Their WFH parents, on hastily repatriated office computers, leached limited WiFi making online learning a practical challenge, a pedagogic challenge and a psychological one too.
The Yr 13 leavers of 2022 have been denied public exam scrutiny for three years. They have watched the years above be teacher assessed. They have heard chat from older siblings at Uni living a hermit’s existence due to lockdowns and limited online tutorials. Many came home forfeiting expensive residential and tutorial fees.
In time research will evaluate the true impact this denial of normal educational service will have had on the exam leavers of 2022. Until then we must stand by our pupils whose confidence has been undermined. We must applaud their teachers who have moved megabytes of disk space to keep learning alive when almost all else that was so familiar had suddenly become so strange. Full praise too, to schools that remained open for the children of key workers whose parents kept the country operational through these darkest of times, including teachers.
The Insta/TikTok generation have pulled through. Youth will always find a way. We must applaud their achievements this August without judging their results. We must remember how resilient they have had to be to get where they are today on results day. We owe them and their teachers – the true survivors of this crisis – an enormous debt of gratitude. Everyone of them are Marvels and Marvelettes!
