If I was left with even a niggling doubt that my childrens’ school has turned into an exam machine, this Christmas end of term has kicked the proverbial crutch right out from under it and eaten its Smartie tube.
Do you remember the end of term? At Christmas? Sparkly classrooms, relaxed uniform, concerts, happy staff with tins of Quality Street perched on their desks and Santa hats perched on their heads, watching the odd sneaky movie, gorgeous smells from the Home Ec department, class parties… music and cards everywhere.
That’s what I remember.
On 22nd December, the last full day of term, my daughter will be sitting a Maths NAB, an essential component of her Higher Maths course, and a Close Reading test in English.
At 10:30 tonight I finally persuaded her to stop her Maths revision and get some sleep.
And to what end? Having read Lily’s words over at Frothers, you’ve got to wonder.
I was shocked when I saw my daughter’s 5th year timetable back in August. There isn’t a single period that’s not devoted to the 5 subjects she’s pursuing at Higher level. No Social Ed, Citizenship, PE, nothing at all to take the pressure off the constant academic treadmill.
And now it’s clear she won’t be experiencing so much as an hour of joy at school this last week of term either.
But I must stop going on because the more I recall my wonderful memories of Perth Academy the more pissed off she gets that it’s not the same anymore.
The rector during my time there was a tyrant. When he died (recently) and I was offered the chance to write a few words recalling memories of his rectorship – I refused.
But at least he put a Christmas tree up… signalling a week of sparkly classrooms, relaxed uniform, concerts, happy staff……
What a shame. Having said that we have our prelims 4 days after we get back from Christmas/New Year and will any of my S6 have studied…? Perhaps a couple of them
I agree there’s too much pressure for some kids but there are the other extremes where schools let S6 have so called study sessions and we see them toddling off to TESCO halfway through the day never to be seen again until the next day.
However, the spirit of Christmas is not dead. I got two pressies today from S1 and S2 kids. We also did some Christmassy drawing/colouring in in S1 to take our minds off the tests they’re (S1!) sitting in January. Tomorrow we kill off Santa and do a CSI investigation to find his killer
we always get the email from SLT a week before we break up ‘No DVDs and no sitting around chilling and chatting about what’s been going on’.
Meanwhile my S2s have been self evaluating their term and what they’ve learnt and what they think we still need to sort. Whilst eating mince pies or Pringles for the mince pie haters. And chatting about ‘what’s occurring’
There are ways around the edicts from above! Hope you, Neil and the kids have a good Christmas at home and forget about school for a fortnight at least
Pringles and mince pies make a huge difference to how pupils perceive a lesson don’t they? Even as a pupil myself I could see teachers get a kick out of being human sometimes! Your CSI investigation sounds fabulous – but did you feel you had to check it against the four capacities before proceeding? That’s what I find sad, hammering learning into oh so square boxes :/
January prelims, that’s just EVIL
You have a wonderful Christmas, we shall when it’s allowed to arrive – tho forgetting school? As if that’s possible
Gosh. I’d no idea it was like that further up the school. Boy One has just started high school and they seem to have a pretty good wind-down.
Didn’t prelims used to be in February giving enough time to get the finger out for exams in May/June?
I’m sure not all schools are the same Ellen, I’m sure most schools aren’t.
They don’t even get a wind down at the end of the year since the next year’s timetable is adopted as soon as the SQA exams finish in June. It’s relentless.
Their S4 prelims were at the end of November and the S5/S6 prelims will be sometime in early 2012, not sure exactly when. There’s no need for a NAB and a close reading to be scheduled for 22nd December other than to keep them at the grindstone right til the bitter end. The pressure ends up heaped on the kids but it’s also on the teachers and no doubt on the SMTs, I just wonder where the source is as Education Directors are pretty quick to insist there’s no postcode lottery when it comes to exam success, despite the figures published on Education Scotland last week :/
Wow, that does sound like a bit of a nightmare. Even when I was at school there were end of term parties and things, no constant pressure right up until the end
It does feel harder now than it was. I have babysitters from the local secondary school and they always seem to have exams in the run up to Christmas
I used to love the end of term. Seniors do have a very heavy load on them and I understand that they would benefit from that being reduced, but an hour and half a week taken away from their subjects still seems a lot. I’m not sure what the answer is, maybe there’s not one that will good for everyone.