Money For The Poor

So it's that time of year again. Exam season. Except only this time it's my turn to sit those dreaded and feared GCSE's. Now being the qualifications traditionally crucially important for setting you in good stead for later life one would think that standards of invigilation and surroundings would be high. However as I enter the exam hall a shudder runs over me and not because I'm scared. I must tell you... Our school exam hall is... Freezing. So I sit down at my desk only to discover my chair is half broken and perilously in danger of collapsing halfway through the exam. However the thought of asking the scary Noel Edmunds lookalike who has been hired to officially supervise for the duration of the exam season. I'm sure he's a perfectly amicable person but now is not the time to confirm that. Would it cost the establishment so much more to provide the students of today with table that doesn't rock in a way which appears to replicate the movement of a journey on rowing boat every time one moves their pen? Surely it's classed as a detrimental distraction when the lighting fluctuate from a blazing glare to a murky gloom within the space of five minutes? And how about some quieter heating? Not that it works effectively anyway but it would be nice to to have to listen to a rocket relaunching as I try and calcuate the product of two simultaneous equations.

Okay maybe not the top of the governments agenda but maybe it should be. Of course I'm not just slightly be covering my back incase I fail everything.. I wonder if I could sue for distractions?

Set In Stone.....

Now most of the people sat here reading this are most likely to have been through their years at secondary school or at some point through the process. Now we all know what happens at the end of your long and treacherous journey through education.. It's those pesky GCSEs. Now as I finally find myself coming to the end of a long and lengthy period of examinations I begin to question the system (well it's a good job I didn't do it earlier than now or I may have just screwed up my life eh?). So much appears to rest on your GCSEs. Your college placements, Jobs, Uni and countless other seemingly uber important things in life. Yet as I confer with fellow pupils both before and after examinations the doubt really has set in. We really aren't giving everyone a fair crack at the game are we? Now I've always prided myself on being in the top sets for well everything and have been aspiring for those top grades for as long as I can remember. I behaved, tried my best and got lucky. There's only a limited number of places in a class and some people are inevitably going to lose out. On average more than half in the people in the second set of a subject would cope perfectly well in the top set. These people are then taking up the places of the people who would cope perfectly well in the second set.. And so the cycle goes on - Catch 22. So you'd you'd think that teachers would adjust what they teach accordingly and effectively teach some sets the same thing. If only it were that simple. You will only get taught what is needed for a specific grade.. Nice huh? So you're in set 4 and they'll only teach you what you need for a D grade when you could probably get an B if you were taught what you needed to know. God help set 6... These people are perfectly capable of achieving top grades but teachers just simply aren't teaching them what they need to know. The current setting system is limiting peoples potential - People are not being taught the skills they need. I have a friend in set 3 who needs to take higher to get to where she wants in life but the school refuse to put her in this tier because she's in set 3 and isn't taught any of the material she needs to know.

Is there anyone else out there who thinks this is amazingly unfair? Surely we should be helping people to get the best grades they possibly can but all we're doing is inhibiting them. This is something which really really angers me. Anyone else up for making a stand?