Tomorrow is results day for students all over the world getting their A-Level or BTec Level 3 results. So firstly, good luck to everyone awaiting results and I hope you get all you hoped for.
But…..
Exams results aren’t everything! Our current system definitely has them as important as they impact on the next stage in life and on career or university opportunities but if we take a wider angle lens they aren’t as important, and it is for this reason that I ask parents and their children to seek to take that wider angle lens. Taking the wide angle lens isn’t easy though, I will admit, as it focusses on considering and accepting an unknown future where we have a bias for what we know, an availability bias. But it is important.
Exams results are an important step in our life journey, there is no doubt in this, although I would definitely like to see some change in our current education systems and in the industrial error approach to student learning. But that’s for another blog, and also something I don’t see changing any time soon so for now we are stuck with this system. So exams are important but not as important as I feel they are made out to be. For some students, they will get the results they sought to get, either through natural aptitude, hard work or an element of luck. And I note most will likely get there through a mixture of ability, hard work and luck, something which I see as a recurring theme in life. Others may be a little disappointed but nonetheless proceed to the next stage of their lives or education. While others still will be very disappointed and see their initial plans go up in smoke, possibly seeing their grades failing to meet the entry requirements for their chosen course and then having to look to clearing for alternatives. This might be the result of failing to put in the needed effort, however it may also be the result of external circumstances, such as family matters, or health issues, or it could even be the result of bad luck and the questions which arose on that particular exam paper on that particular day.
In my school days I saw the later, seeing my plans go up in smoke and requiring an additional year of school study rather than my planned jump to university study. I feel now that this likely happened as I didn’t fully focus having previously found the previous standard grade exams easy, so I attributed the issue mainly down to myself. At the time I was gutted and got quite depressed and down about the whole thing. I went to a pretty dark place at times, and suspect these days may have sought or been made to seek medical help, where back then this wasn’t as normal or common. But taking a wider angle lens and looking back now I suspect this “failure” made me work a bit harder than I had done and shaped the career which was yet to come. A year later I joined the university, having also taken a summer course as a backup plan, proceeding four years later to a 2.1 hons, albeit even then I was disappointed in not getting a first class. But again, this possibly a good thing as again it lit a fire in me that saw me focus and quickly progress from a lecturer to a course leader and eventual Head of School in an FE college in only a few years.
My message to students is therefore to avoid focussing too much on your results, be they good, bad or indifferent. This isn’t the end, but is but a point in a long life journey which has many twists and turns. With that in mind either take the opportunity to celebrate, or to reflect and learn, but that’s all it is, a point and in a day or so this point in time will have passed and it will be time to move on and focus on next steps. You are not defined by the results you achieve, but by what you do next, and the thing you do after that, and after that.
Good luck, well done no matter what the results, and may the future hold many exciting opportunities and experiences ahead, even if your plans now have to change.
Technology and Learning