Last week was a tense week, with everything pivoting around GCSE results day last Thursday. Honestly, as massively stressful as this was for our daughter, it was also very stressful for us as parents, but thankfully everything worked out in the end.
The archaic education system, focusing on parrot-fashion learning as it does, never sat well with me, nor does the primitive method of 'reveal' that kids have to sit through every results day. You turn up at the school, avoiding the 'popular girls' who always seem to be dressed like catalogue models, leaping into the air for their photo opportunities with the local papers. You avoid the other effervescent kids and parents whose kids have clearly done well and they're extremely smug about it. You pick up an envelope - and for a teenager that must be one of the first times you're confronted with a true unknown, the results envelope simultaneously occupying both Schroedinger states of "Excellent results / terrible results" until the thing is opened and your brain can comprehend what's written there
We watched as kiddo did this, and saw the sea of 8s.
Relief. You know how it is as an anxiety sufferer. The sort of relief that washes over you in waves when a situation you've overthought actually turns out for the best. The relief that you're sitting in your seat on a mode of transport you've booked onto, and it's the right seat and you're not sitting next to the huge stinky bloke with BO or the screaming seat-kicking child. The relief that your car service doesn't cost you a grand, but a couple of hundred quid. The relief of seeing that sea of 8s and knowing that all the preparation you'd done for a positive outcome can now come into play, and you won't have to pick up the pieces of a broken teenager wondering what direction their life is going to take next.
So on we go. We pointed out to kiddo that she'd only have to go through this a couple more times in her life (A level results, and hopefully degree results) but as far as GCSEs go, she worked hard, she studied hard, and she knocked it out of the park. I could not be more proud.
Comments
Post a Comment