The British Education System is not working
The British education system does not test intelligence at all, but instead just how far someone can push themselves before they finally break down.
Recently I have completed my A-Level exams and am patiently awaiting results day, which will be in the middle of August, to find out if I received the grades I wanted and will be able to attend my first-choice university this year.
I along with hundreds of thousands of other students across the country have been working exceptionally hard over the past two years in order to sit the exams we did. I had seen people sitting in the library for hours a day after school hours and many students staying up all night to revise for exams.
Many teachers had told us over and over that these exams would be the most important ones of our lives, that they would determine what university we would attend and how respected we would appear when we applied for jobs in the future.
This pressure pushed many students to severely overwork themselves and some of the smartest people I have met began to fizzle out and lose their flow. This is when I noticed that these exams were not a test of intelligence at all, but instead just how well people could cope with the circumstances and the stress.
I watched as some of my closest friends, some who had never received below B grades in their whole time at sixth form, received Ds and Es in the last set of mocks in April before our real exams which started in May.
The British education system does not test intelligence at all, but instead just how far someone can push themselves before they finally break down.
Many students put themselves through the toughest times of their lives so far in order to achieve good grades at A-Level. Deleting social media and cutting themselves off from their friends, no longer sleeping at night, eating barely a meal a day, just so they could revise for their exams. This type of behaviour was praised by some people at our school, including teachers.
“Oh yeah so and so hasn’t been speaking to their friends because they’ve been in the library studying all the time.”
“Oh wow, that’s great! Good for them.”
Seeing this type of reaction made me realise that people didn’t actually realise how unhealthy it was. Limiting yourself socially and putting yourself through isolation just for some grades on a sheet of paper which although are important, do not define you as a person or show how intelligent you are at all.
People experience breakdowns during exam season — not being able to deal with the pressure, the isolation, the sleepless nights and other personal issues they have on their plate behind the scenes. This leads to people not being able to deal with the pressure and then dropping out in the middle of exams or just plain flunking.
Students should not feel like, after all of the effort they have put in over the two years, after all of the revision they did leading up to exams, that they haven’t done enough and that they are not adequately prepared. This is the case for many students, even if they had put in the maximum amount of effort.
People who clearly had so much potential around me at sixth form, crying after exams because they didn’t do as well as they wanted, because they felt so stressed that they panicked in the exam hall. This is what our education system is.
My sixth form provides somewhat adequate help for people who feel like they need it, on site counselling, meditation spaces, places to take naps and many supportive staff members who are happy to listen and help. However, it just doesn’t feel like enough, it doesn’t feel like the unnecessary pressure is relieved in any way at all.
It feels as if no matter what is put in place to support students, they will always feel under so much pressure due to the mass amount of content that they have to learn in such a short space of time.
Many A-Levels cram content, which would usually take up to 3 years to teach correctly, into less than 2 years only to result in testing less than half of the actual content in the exams. This clearly shows that the exams are not about how well you know the specification at all but instead about how well you can pace yourself, deal with the pressure and predict what will come up based on previous exam papers.
Even when being tested on content, it rarely is actual application of knowledge. I completed A-Levels in Psychology, English Literature and Politics and all of my exams felt more like a test of memory rather than applying anything I have learnt in the past two years.
Psychology? How well do you remember case studies?
English? How well do you remember quotes from the texts?
Politics? How well do you remember what Thomas Hobbes said about human nature, the statistics of the 1979 election and the sources of the UK constitution?
Exams should focus on knowledge and application of what you have learnt, not how well you have memorised details before walking into the exam hall.
Students feel as if the rest of their lives are dependent on one single exam season, a short one-month period spanning over May and June. And if something goes wrong in this time frame, they are doomed.
The new linear format of A-Levels do not work, they leave students feeling disgustingly overwhelmed, induce mental health problems and overall just do not test intelligence. Although just reformed, the system needs to change, if not the format of the A-Levels then the support which is enforced by the government, not left optional to the sixth-form/college.
If you feel like you are struggling with exam stress and it feels as if you are unable to cope please seek help. There are a range of resources available for young people in order to aid them with their mental health, particularly during exam season.
