The silly season is upon us once more! Brace yourself - before this week is out we will find ourselves embroiled in the annual debate over whether school exams are easier than they used to be (in our day). 'A' level results are published on Thursday - except for those that were published by accident last Saturday (Oh dear - surely that's one thing we should be able to get right?).
The word on the street is that this year's crop of results will be the best yet. Rather than celebrate the achievement of our sixth-formers, there will be those who pour cold water on the announcements by accusations of 'dumbing down'. This has been a consistent theme for the past decade or so and while there may well be evidence to back up the claims, it is hardly the students' fault. Yet they must feel miffed that their efforts are routinely devalued by a sceptical media. It compares to awarding an Olympic athlete a gold medal only to pass the comment that had it not been for superior training techniques and high tech equipment, she would not be as fast as an athlete twenty years ago!
Why do we have to have this annual rubbishing of students' academic achievements? Are the exam boards and politicians to blame for drawing attention to it? Is society so cynical that we have to believe that things can't be as good as they seem? As a parent I am well qualified, perhaps it is better worded as being in a strong position, to compare the scholastic efforts of my children to my own and I can categorically say that they worked harder than I ever did; studied more subjects; had more homework; took more exams from SATS to GCSEs, from AS levels to A levels and then had to compete for places at university with no certainty that even with excellent grades they could get on to the course they desired.
Pressure on today's students is at an all time high. Let's just pull back from our intense regard for standards for the remainder of this month and take the 'A' level and GCSE results for what they are - a measure of what each individual student has achieved - and celebrate.
Carl Gilleard, AGR Chief Executive
