E is for exams

When Michael Gove's predecessors determined that exams would be taken from mid-May to the end of June, did they ever stop to wonder how to marry the mind of a truculent teen with the need to spend hours bending over books? In the 21st Century, this should read: staring at a screen and remembering the ancient art of putting pen to paper and making notes on information imbibed.

Our academic year ends soon, providing a welcome break over the ludicrously named 'summer months', but once in a while we're taken by surprise; the sun does shine, bees buzz and flowers nod in homage to the yellow globe in the sky purported to be giver of life - and suntans. Starved of sunshine and vitamin A for months on end, these GCSE/A/degree students long to stretch lily limbs in the light, to lie in the grass and gaze at nothing whilst listening to music, heasdphones vibrating with noise so loud that anyone within a 400 metre radius also benefits from their choice of motivational melody.

Wouldn't it be better to schedule these blips in the career of academic achievement in winter weather? - little deterrent from studies when the choice is rain, either in horizontal rods or consistent heavy drizzle, icy blasts from the north-east bringing road-shutting snow and - oh that was summer 2012 and May 2013!

Perhaps if we looked in the annals of educational history, (oh, go on!), we'd find that a particularly 2012/'13 like summer preceeded the academic advisor's moment of genius scheduling. 

My memories of an A' level summer long ago consist of cushions splayed across the garden, cold glasses of drink, the radio blasting out Tom Robinson's 'War Baby' - which I hated at the time - kit-kats, wrappers from Big Feast ice-creams and friends close by who were as little interested in revision as I - we hoped that a process of osmosis might take place between the notes stuffed under cushions to stop them blowing away across the grass and our sun-numbed craniums. Our future university or working life seemed of little concern.

In contrast the eldest two offspring know which grades are needed for where; that impossibly high targets have been set and they vascillate between stress, exhaustion, worry, a deep desire to do nothing, and panic. All whilst looking at the sunniest weather we've had in over eighteen months. Maybe War Baby wasn't so bad after all!