Thinking about Exam Results Days and mental health

Every year in England, in the middle of August, there are two all-important days when children are given results from either their A-Level exams, or their GCSEs (usually, but not always, taken at the ages of 17/18 and 15/16).

My girls are 19 and 17 now. A lot of friends and family have children around these ages, so for the past few years these Results Days have featured heavily in both our 'real' lives and in the social media post I'm seeing. One of our our girls took both A-Level and GCSE exams (although she was in the first cohort after the global pandemic, so her GCSE exams were re-named 'tests'. She still sat exams for both as far as I'm concerned!), and she achieved brilliant results. Our younger daughter, at the age of 17, has not taken any exams, yet. I always say 'yet' because we can never predict what the future will bring. But I think it's probably unlikely that she will ever take any of these 'big' milestone exams that many of her peers do.

That doesn't mean she's unintelligent, or that she knows less about lots of topics than many fully-fledged adults. People may judge her for not having a grade in English and Maths GCSEs (and judge me for not pushing her to do these) but that doesn't mean her English and Maths are bad. She writes fiction, and uses (in a relevant way) descriptive words that I would rarely, if ever, use myself - for example, one that stood out to me recently was 'visceral'. Her maths? Well, she has a phone with a calculator. That's all she needs, she keeps telling me... 

It's more the stress of exams and the having to answer unnecessary questions that our younger daughter struggles with. We did try an English Functional Skills paper together at home a couple of years ago - you can probably tell from this picture how that went...

Results days bring mixed emotions for me. Happy memories of my youth, because I was lucky enough to do well and not find school particularly hard or stressful, and happiness for friends and family whose children are enjoying great success. But I also feel a need to remind people that exams are not the be-all and end-all. Not the only thing that matters in life. It's difficult when there's not a clear way forward for your child, but I think the best way to deal with that is to take life a day at a time. Think about the future and have ideas in mind, but accept that reality might be different. Different, but not less.

I know that the results don't come easy for many children; some will have worked extra hard for them, some will have struggled through mental health difficulties, or awful life experiences such as losing friends and family. I don't share my thoughts to take the shine off those with good results, whether they were expected or not. I share for the families who are finding life difficult. Families whose children are not following the 'typical' education path.

The results days put so much pressure on children in our country because everything that follows hangs on those results. Meaning that very few individuals know for sure what they are going to be able to do for the next year, so there's a lot of uncertainty hanging over heads in the run up to results days. This doesn't seem to be the case in some other countries I've read about - in America, for example, children build up scores for their work as they go through the years, and colleges for after the age of 18 offer their places before the results of final exams. Sounds like a much better system to me!

All of this worry is having a big effect on the mental health of our children. I feel like we need to stop placing so much importance on these particular exam results and find a better way of celebrating all children.

Yesterday I saw a post that stayed in my mind, and I wanted to share because it's a story that I feel can give hope to others. A story of one child who struggled to attend school and ended up taking a different path... there are of course many variations of this story, so many alternative paths that can be taken. This is just one example of success after not following the 'typical' pathway. But I think the message is great - that our children are filled with potential and we just need to keep the faith.

This post below was written by an amazing mum called Suzanne Alderson, founder of the brilliant Parenting Mental Health charity, creator of the fabulous Facebook group Parenting Mental Health, and author of Never Let Go: How to Parent Your Child Through Mental Illness. I highly recommend checking all of these out if you or your children are facing difficult times.

GCSE Results Day 

If you’re awaiting GCSE results today, or you’ve got them already, read on…

If your child got what you hoped, congratulations! There’s nothing like the feeling of delight and relief when they succeed. And your presence here means it won’t have been all study sessions and nag free note taking - so we see the Herculean efforts you and your child have made. Please share in the group today. It’s important we see and can celebrate your success. 

If your child didn’t get what they hoped for, we feel for you both. Whatever the reasons behind it, it can feel that this is the end of the line; a judgement on their potential, a glimpse into their future. It really isn’t…and I’ll share some experiences in a moment to prove that. 

Some practical pointers for today:

- if your child’s place is dependent on results, give the school or college a call. It may be that they will accept the grades. And set your concern aside, get your best Dragon’s Den pitch and sweetest voice on and, if this is what your child wants, do your best to persuade them. Pull in other interests, their MH challenges, all the things that you know about them that the school or college may not. Good luck! 

- Allow… allow today to unfold as it needs to emotionally. Your child may be disappointed, that’s ok. It’s an important part of the process. They may be angry. That’s ok too. Or dismissive or distraught or any number of other emotions. They’re all ok and to be encouraged. This is a snapshot in time. By allowing the emotions to come out and for your child to feel what they feel, you won’t make it a memory. You’re a container and facilitator today for their experience. You can hold what comes up. You really can…

- As long as you find some space ( hello, we’re here!) to set down your feelings. We so often seek external validation for our parenting and assurance that what our child has done will assert a positive future. To be honest, your relationship and belief in them is more likely to determine their future happiness than exam results. So today, see how you can manage your emotions, be present for them, and hold the faith that this is not the way your story will end. 

Speaking of that, we had our own plot twist in 2016. Issy had been out of school for 2 years. No formal learning. Lots of making and gaming and healing. She decided she wanted to go to college after a last minute dash to see a gaming course, 3 months before GCSE exams. Ok… no learning for 2 years…deep trauma…no school… and you need 5 GCSEs… 

So we set about trying to get her 5 GCSEs. To cut a long story short, she took 3 in the end and got 2.5 😂 I say 2.5 because she got an E in Art ( which is ironic as she’s now a concept artist!) I called the college in a tizz and they said they had given her an unconditional offer in light of her mental health challenges, so it really didn’t matter - oh, and she could have resat Maths and English if she hadn’t passed them. 

She went on to have 100% attendance at college and got the highest grades at BTEC and 2 unconditional offers for university. And I share not to boast, but to say whatever your child gets, nearly gets, didn’t get, hopes to get…it’s just an adjective in a paragraph in this chapter of their lives. It doesn’t define them either way. 

If they were in a place to do the exams, it’s a reflection of their available effort and the support they were given and able to accept. It’s a key to the next stage.

And if they weren’t in a place to take GCSEs, it’s a reflection of their available capacity, not a reflection on their intelligence, capability or potential. 

The pre frontal cortex goes offline when we’re under stress and duress. That can help us reframe learning and exams as about the capacity of the brain and nothing to do with worth as a person. They’re still epic humans even if they don’t have eleventy hundred exams! 

And finally, Issy with her 2.5 GCSEs went on to do an arts degree and now works as a streamer and freelance concept artist, creating work for clients all around the world. If we’d looked at those GCSE results as anything other than a stage in her life, a reflection of her capacity at the time, if we’d seen them as a judgement on her capabilities, we wouldn’t be here. 

So keep the faith for your child - they are filled with potential, and they need us to believe that, whether they took exams, didn’t, passed, failed, whatever… 

Take care of yourself today, and use the community to share the highs and the lows and everywhere in between. It’s a challenging day, as it’s been building for a while. But take a breath, have a brew, and believe that whatever comes next is part of their becoming who they are and getting to where they’re meant to be. 

Oh, and you get an A* for all you’ve done for them ❤️

Suzanne and her daughter