A Level Results Day

This time last year I was a nervous wreck.  I hadn't slept.  I'd cleaned out every cupboard in the house.  My mind giving me all sorts of wierd scenarios and I was imagining every possibility.  This time 28 years ago, I got up opened the post, thought, 'meh' (not that that word was invented then) and went to work.

My conclusion is that A level results day is worse for parents than the students.

Of course it isn't but the world has changed so much.  We got post before we went to work, now they have to go into school to get their results.  I would have been mortified at having to tell everyone there and then what I got.  It took me a good 2 days to process it.  Some schools with very bright, very beautiful people allowed their pupils to collect their results, so that the newspapers could come and take photos but my school was more realistic.  When I was collecting my A level results, Universities and Polytechnics were different things.  Once you came to the conclusion you weren't going to get into a University then you could apply to each individual Polytechnic you fancied and you could do this after your results came out and that was AFTER CLEARING.  Now, the only back up is clearing.  There are more places but there are also more smart kids, who want to do a degree.  It has changed again in the last few years and now, because of the internet and the fact that UCAS opens at 8am they know whether they have got in to their University of choice as soon as they wake up.  I remember having a laptop thrown at me, whilst being screemed at last year.

As I am writing this, several of my daughter's friends and my friend's children have found out where they are going and posted it on Twitter or Facebook, so we can all breathe again.  Most, so far have got into their first choice but for those who haven't heard there will be a nervous wait until they can go into school and find out how much they missed it by.

Finding out the actual results, for those that got in, can feel like an anti-climax. It doesn't matter whether you got higher or lower grades than you were predicted because the next step wants you.  Those who didn't get the results already feel like failures and so going to get the results probably feels like torture.

For anyone who is feeling like that I would like to quote from the Marigold Hotel film, "It will be alright in the end and if it's not alright then it's not the end."

And for those who are collecting results, wondering if they are those who are going to get all A*s, please remember that it is only the very attractive people that get those grades (I know - I've seen the newspapers)

Even the boys are beautiful.  In my day, the boys were spotty, geeky and hadn't seen the light of day in two years. 

My generation weren't clever enough to do sport and get A levels!

The other things I know must be true about A level results (from reading the papers) is that there won't be enough university places, the results are better than ever before, the exams are easier, there has been a dumbing down of A levels and that  there will be several pictures of Michael Gove claiming to be responsible for everything good and promise to fix everything that's bad.