GCSEs, Results and Education in Britain

Yes, unfortunately the time has come where 15 to 16 year olds all throughout Great Britain will face a tough time. It’s time that they receive their GCSE results on the 27th of August, 2009. I decided to write this article because even I am one of the many who will be receiving their results next week and the tension is palpable.

To those who don’t know what GCSEs are, GCSEs are a bunch of exams that 15 to 16 year olds take whilst at school. After receiving their GCSE results, the students are free to continue on to further education where they do A Levels that eventually bump them up to university or the pupils can continue in employment or some other sort of training or apprenticeship. GCSEs used to be called O Levels as some of the older members of Britain may recognise. Each student in Year 11 who does these GCSEs, does up to 11 or 12 subjects in their school although more can be done outside of school or if a student prefers, some of these can be dropped. For every subject, the pupil gets a GCSE for attempting the exam irrespective of whether they pass or fail so as long as they don’t get the U grade which is ‘Ungraded’. Normally, most colleges (where pupils do their A Levels but their field is very specialised like ‘Leisure and Tourism’ or ‘Beauty’) or Sixth Form’s which are a slightly different kind of further education where pupils also do A Levels, ask for GCSEs that are grades between A* to C.

Now that you’ve understood the education system of GCSEs in Britain, time to shift on to results. This week, just a few days ago, the A Level students got their results which determine what universities they go to. Now the spotlight shifts on the GCSE students (like I) who receive our results on the 27th of August and are we nervous or what? More than the examinations, the results feel like an ordeal. So come, the 27th of August, most of us 15 to 16 year olds will find that our fate is decided through what grades we get. Some of us have applied to better sixth forms. Some of us have chosen to continue in the school we’ve studied in so far. Others choose to do very specialised courses at college. Some others pick apprenticeships, trainee programs or employment alongside these trainee courses. But for all of us, our grades will decide whether we can go to a better sixth form, continue in our school that we are in now, go to college or switch to employment.

This seriously is a hard time and even for the best pupils and every one is incredibly nervous (including me!) Although all of us are expected to do quite well because the British government claims that the GCSEs are a lot easier than they were when they did them, I still feel that I am far too nervous and only us students can understand how hard we really find them and the pain we go through, waiting for those results to arrive so that we can open our envelopes on the 27th and see if we’ve done well or not. These results are going to determine what sort of future we might have and to all of us, it is of the utmost importance. I’m pretty sure that there will be many sleepless students on the night before the 27th but hopefully, our grades will be good enough to let us accomplish our goals.

It’s all about making the grade.