I'm an academic person; I have a good memory so my brain is hardwired for exams, that's not me trying to brag, but rather just pointing out that the current education system is largely based on memory recall.
Yet, I had a difficult time in school. Not the learning aspect, I enjoyed lessons, apart from maths, physics and chemistry, though those were bearable, more so the large class sizes and the extremely generic curriculum for a bunch of very unique individuals.
It's back to school season, which means an endless panic from both students and parents alike about the next academic year; including which classes and teachers will take up your time this year, and how you are already behind on revision despite starting school the day before.
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Granted, this sounds slightly pessimistic, especially against the hopeful new beginnings that another academic year brings, however, it's more to point out that even for someone with a brain that is arguably suited for the rigid curriculum and examinations in England, in fact I took my GCSEs in 2023, it still wasn't a breeze.
In fact, exam board OCR has even hit out at the amount of exams students have to take, and they write them! Students in England spent around 31.5 hours sitting tests, more time than almost any other country.
In turn, schools focus on the content of those GCSEs, which makes sense if it's going to take up more than 30 hours of your time, and the learning becomes more about preparing for the test than learning simply for the sake of it.
That doesn't mean that many schools, and teachers, focus on making sure that isn't the case, however, there isn't much wiggle room when the whole system, including their jobs, focuses on the results of a few exams at the end of the curriculum.
Exams serve a purpose, they provide something to work towards and ensure that everyone is learning similar topics, yet they don't work for everyone, and it's narrow-minded to assume that they do.
All to say, exams are important, but they don't mean everything, and failing a few exams will not define your life to the degree you are led to believe it will. You'll be fine, I promise.
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