It’s that time of year again. Depending on your mindset, either the best of times or the worst of times; the spring of hope or the winter of despair. It’s a time for wisdom, not foolishness. Exam time. While there are inevitable anxieties, the mood in the camp is buoyant – and this is remarkable when you bear in mind that we have had a two-year break from public exams (as we knew them) and our current Year 11 and Year 13 students are the ones charged with pushing the reset button.
Last night we enjoyed a magnificent GCSE and A Level Art and Photography Exhibition and marvelled at the extraordinary work on display – the culmination of two years of risk-taking, refining and perseverance. It was lovely to see so many families and teachers there to celebrate, and so many students there to support one another (and reassuring to see them looking so relaxed on the eve of their GCSE Maths exam).
Listening to parents admiring the work on the walls and recounting the stories behind the finished pieces (the hours of staring at a blank canvass, the frustrations, the portfolios clogging up the hallways or left in the houses of friends) was a reminder of how many people will have supported our artists on their journeys – and the same goes for all students now sitting their public exams. As I have written before, and as one parent reminded me in a meeting this week, it really does take a village to raise a child.
Good luck to all our leavers and to all our students sitting internal and external exams.
They have everything before them.
