And so it ends

My school is a funny place. My school is a crazy place. My school, isn't really a school at all. Seven years at the most ridiculous, loving, nurturing, educational institution has taught me lots of things.

Yes, it's taught me English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and a modern language. But it also taught me compassion, maturity, understanding and depth. My school gave me friends, but most importantly, my school gave me a family. A safe space, a place to go when it felt like the whole world had turned their back on me.

My school, in all its strange and innately unorganised ways taught me to be who I am and to be proud. It taught me to love myself, to respect myself, and to love and respect others - no matter who they are and where they come from.

And so, as my long and strange journey comes to an end, I feel the need to write about my school, a place that has seen me grow up more than any place else.

My school gave me role models. It gave me the opportunity to grow up with the most unbelievable positive influences surrounding me. People that showed me that there were ways to be good, kind, honest and dedicated people, all the while being real. People that demonstrated real strength. People that were smart and sweet, badass and funny. These people that brought me up, and showed me kindness for no reason other than that is the kind of people that they are.

A while ago, my friend and I discussed that my school is pretty much run by strong, successful and powerful women - and how cool that was. But I think it goes beyond that. Because growing up with strong, beautiful, unbelievable women who all have their own stories, some of which I have been privileged enough to know, has showed me how to be a strong, successful and groundbreaking women. It has showed me how to achieve my goals and how to build myself up, whilst building up others around me.

My school also showed me how to be brave. It allowed me to fight on my own, and also to fight with support. They showed me how to love and care and cry all the while doing things for other people.

My school has given me so much more than I can ever give it. My teachers have taught me more than I can even begin to explain. My friends have shown me friendship that has an unlimited capacity. And whist this all sounds very cliche, I can't even begin to explain how it really is not.

Because yes, my school is a school. It teaches English, Maths and Science. But my school has taught and given me so much more. And for that, I will always be grateful.

I don't think words will ever really be able to fully express how much my school has done for me, and moreover, how much I am going to miss it and everyone in it. But in my school we have a saying - 'you can take the girl out of Hasmo, but you can't take the Hasmo out of the girl.' And as much as I know that is true, I really hope it will be the same for me.

-LF, LR and MG xxx

Why School is Soul Destroying

I have a lot to hold against school at the moment. I completely understand that it's so important and I'm eternally grateful that I have been given high quality education, however I believe that the school system in the United Kingdom (and most likely elsewhere) are doing something wrong.

On the 13th August, Years 12 and 13 received their grades which either determine a place at university or will shape the predicted grades for universities to see. Obviously there are other options, which I will touch upon later.

To me, it seems as if examiners are purposely failing students. If a student was one or two marks off the higher grade, it felt like they revelled in the student's unhappiness and refused to be slightly more generous. If the exam is entirely subjective, such as English (and in my case, Drama) it appeared as if the examiners remained biased to their own views and gave a lower grade than students deserved.

Whilst I find that incredibly annoying, there is something that is bigger than this that I'd like to focus on. School is ruining the fun of education. I have two personal examples to justify this point...

I have two wonderful psychology teachers who manage somehow to keep my class motivated, educated and their love for the subject shines through them and radiates onto us. One of these teachers appears to stay true to the value 'learning for learning's sake' - studying a subject purely for the love of it. In lessons, she frequently shares genuinely interesting facts, to which she is met with blank facial expressions and the same question is posed:

"Will we need this for the exam?"

Do you see how damaging this is? When you think about it, we're supposed to study the subjects that we love, when soon the love will be replaced by the robotic routine of absorbing information and regurgitating it all over the exam paper. There's no time or brain capacity to learn for enjoyment, which is deeply saddening.

My second example follows the way that my practical AS Drama exam went. Our teacher had told us to 'use the inspiration' of a practitioner and apply it to a script of our choice. My friend discovered an unusual and intriguing script, which we performed to the style of 'Epic Theatre', as developed by Bertold Brecht. No-one else had done anything like that at school. We worked for hours during and after school every week, organised rehearsals out of school and worked solidly at school on this performance.  Both of our teachers helped us with this performance and constantly gave us praise for our work - we were sure that we would get top marks. It took over our lives. At social occasions, my friend and I would vent about how annoyed we were with the others the whole time and we would regularly rehearse our lines (and everyone else's, obviously). We were examined by the moderator, who was also being moderated, and one of our teachers.We performed our hearts out and were proud of it. This was the first time in ages, if not forever, where I felt self-confidence, both in the theatrical world and in real life. 

On the 13th August, we were greeted with a letter 'B' on the report card, rather than the A that we had hoped for. And I know that a B is a great grade, it was just heartbreaking because we expected too much. Our teacher later told us that the chief moderator decided that our performance wasn't "Brechtian" enough. 

Wow.

We were too creative.

Our performance didn't get a high enough grade because we were creative. In a creative subject.

To me, this is not okay. I am not talking about my grade anymore, I am speaking of the fact that students everywhere are having the creativity sucked out of them like a vacuum and then come university and adulthood, when we are allowed a little bit more wriggle room to be inventive, we can't. We have been trained to be machines with cloned brains, not allowed any freedom to be ourselves.

Right, I think I've had a long enough vent! I had been intending to make this post since that eventful day of the 13th August, but I couldn't write it for weeks and then, once I did, my internet was being very temperamental and I eventually forgot about this post. I need to get all of this out there though - not so that everyone can read my problems with school, but so that people can take this and be reminded to maintain their creative energy aside from school. This is why my friends and I created this blog, write poetry, songs and perform.

Thanks for reading,

-LF, LR and MG

xxx

Dear Examiners: My Future Lies In The Details

The best thing about taking exams, is the feeling you have as you get up for the last time, as the person at the front comes round to collect your paper, and dismiss you. The invisible chain that has kept you anchored to your desk for the last two months has been cut off and you are now allowed to do whatever you want, guilt free.

That feeling is a mixture of freedom and relief, but also, it is the knowledge that you have now done everything in your power to make sure that whatever result you get is because you did all you could do. Part of the freedom and relief is knowing that whatever happens next is not up to you anymore.

Although over the summer the impending nausea that surrounds the word 'results' remains, in general, anyone expecting results likes to push the idea out of their minds and dull the scary notion of the future, with the summer.

It is in the days leading up to results day that we begin to re-examine our own performances, making false predictions as to what we have passed or what we have failed. Who we will be disappointing this year, and the many ways in which we will have to make amends to those people. Regardless of how well we suspect we may have done, there is hardly a person in the country that is making positive predictions in an attempt to hopefully far supersede the doubtfully low expectations that you have been subtly trying to work into your parents heads.

Finally the day comes, and you open your results. Staring at the letters that effectively spell out your future. For some people, this moment is filled with relief, you thank your lucky stars that you have met your own requirements along with the ones of your parents, the college, sixth form or university that you want to attend, and spend the rest of the day celebrating.

However, this year in particular, and I'm sure in other years too, there seems to be a large proportion of people that have come out of results day, with more painful consequences. Some people have got grades that they secretly suspected they would but hoped would never actually be true. But some people are genuinely flabbergasted by their results, shocked and disappointed at the view of letters far less satisfactory than the first three of the alphabet.

Faced with the possibility of your future slipping away through your fingers, you try to think of things that you can do to make this whole thing go away. The only thing you can think of is that this must be a mistake.

But what if I told you this actually was a mistake;

This year, I have heard countless tales of people in my year at school and in other schools across the board, who have had their papers remarked, and been regraded totally different grades. I have a friend who was moved up 18 marks, and another who went up 11. This madness is what makes me write this letter in the first places.

Careless examiners are messing with peoples lives.

Not everyone has the money to remark papers, especially not at the ridiculous prices that you are expected to pay for the privilege. I accept that the exam board will reimburse you for the money you lay out initially if the grade changes, but that is irrelevant because these mistakes should not be made in the first place.

What about all the people who decide not to remark because they don't believe their mark will change?
What about all the people who don't have the money to layout and have to go the rest of their lives wondering if their mark could have been something else?
What about all the people who just give up?
What about all the people who lose their university places and end up on a different path than what they were supposed to?
What about all the people who feel as if they have failed, all the heartbreak and stress over a false mark.

My future, and everyone else's lies in the details because when one examiner makes a mistake, it can cost a lot more than £40 per re-mark to fix.

I understand that examiners are humans and humans make mistakes, but at the end of the day these are mistakes that people cannot afford to make.

I hope that people have better luck in the future, and that from now on, examiners will pay attention to the details more than they have been, because that is where the future lies.

-LF, LR and MG