Wealden Times | WT184 | June 2017 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Summer Study
Susan Elkin ponders the timing of examinations
Education
Flaming June. Time for Wimbledon, strawberries, outdoor
theatre – and school exams. Most of us remember sitting
tensely in the school hall struggling desperately to remember
the formula for quadratic equations or the causes of the Seven
Years War while the sun blazed merrily outside and you tried to
ignore the gentle thud of tennis balls on racquets in the distance.
Little has changed. This month thousands of young
people are in the middle of their GCSEs, A levels and
other exams. And, although question papers are generally
more clearly expressed these days and there’s slightly less
emphasis on rote learning, examination arrangements
are not so very different from when I took my O and A
levels, longer ago than I’m prepared to reveal here.
So a radical shake-up is long overdue. And I’m not, for
once referring to the curriculum. It’s the timing which is
no longer fit for purpose. Why on earth do we insist on
staging public exams in the summer? The weather might
be uncomfortably sticky and anyone who suffers from hay
fever or other allergies is likely to be at his or her worst.
More seriously, the insistence on summer exams lies at the root
of the unseemly, inefficient, manic, annual scramble for university
places. Results are announced in August and “Uni” starts only a
few weeks later. Decisions made in haste and repented at leisure
are commonplace. Young people start courses they soon discover
are wrong for them, for example, because in the end that’s all that
was on offer. And if exam papers have to be remarked/upgraded
– which seems to be the case far more often than in times past
presumably because of poor quality markers – then the student may
miss out on the university place all together, at least for that year.
So why don’t we run school exams in cool, business-like January
and February? That would allow plenty of time for papers to be
marked properly with results announced in, say, May and four
further months in which to sort out the allocation of places.
Curricula and teaching timetables would need adjusting of course
(perhaps the exam course could start during Year 9 for instance) but
the advantages would more than justify it. And students could fit
in a few months of work experience before setting off to college.
Even more radically perhaps another solution would be
for everyone to take a whole year out between school and
higher education. Then, even if exams continued to be sat
in the summer students could apply with their actual results
– rather than inaccurate teacher predictions – and definite
offers be made by the higher education institutions. A year
out doesn’t have to be spent travelling, obviously. Personally,
I’d advocate getting a job, finding out how the world works
and saving some money towards the cost of college.
DAY & BOARDING SCHOOL FOR GIRLS & BOYS AGED 2-13
H A P P Y
V E R Y
V E R Y
H A P P Y
AN OUTSTANDING EDUCATION IN AN IDYLLIC SETTING
Twenty one scholarships awarded to Vinehall pupils so far by senior schools,
including Academic, Sport, Music, Art, Drama and Design Technology.
For further information and a prospectus please contact Karen Cooper
on 01580 883090 or at admissions@vinehallschool.com.
www.vinehallschool.com
ROBERTSBRIDGE, EAST SUSSEX
157 wealdentimes.co.uk
VinehallSchoolWT184.indd 1 19/05/2017 11:32