Exam results - news overkill?

[Ann]

I know the students must be individually excited and their families proud, but is there any need for every news bulletin on TV and radio to be reporting on their successes/failures, to show people we don't know opening their results.

Whilst I congratulate them, I am getting just a little bit fed up with hearing it all day long today. Students have been getting their exam results for many years - its not a new thing!

When I got mine nearly 50 years ago, we got ours through the post. I was on holiday at the time and had to spend nearly a week imagining the results in the letter which was sitting on our doormat awaiting my return! PS it was worth waiting for ......

[marval]

I have to agree, well done to all who did well, but I don't really need to know everyone's results.

[joggerjayne]

Yes, students getting their exam results in, err August! ... again! ... is hardly compelling News.

[sherrardk]

Watch out, they will be at it again next Thursday with the GCSE results.

[Ann]

I will thankfully be on holiday then sherrard!

[ummmm]

This is the next generation of workers/tax payers. I would say it's very important.

[invisiblelady]

Have to agree. Results in holidays. Decide what you want to do with your future. Not exactly breaking news! Also...remember 11+ results. They arrived in the holidays and you got a letter telling you where you would be going in September. No "Transition programme"......just get on with it. Totally molly coddled generation. I worry for the future.

[McMouse]

In media terms it's "The Silly Season" and exam results are the August target because Parliament and other institutions have closed for the summer.

[invisiblelady]

I think it's disgusting that parliament "closes." Why??????? They should be working even harder than we do!!!!!!

[FredPuli43]

The statistics about grades may be newsworthy; the exams being easier or harder is a matter of public interest or concern; but nothing else. But we'll still get pictures of pretty girls looking delighted, because that's what newspapers like.

Waiting for results by post? How quaint. My professional exam passes were printed in The Times and the Daily Telegraph. As we students were all based in Fleet Street, that meant that we all got drunk and staggered down the street to get the earliest edition 'hot off the press' at about 10.30 pm to read the results with one eye shut!. At least we were numbed to any failure.

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

I think most of you have forgotten how important results day was to you.

[invisiblelady]

How old are you FredPuli43????

[Ann]

Yes you have hit the nail on the head Mojo - the exams are important to us, our friends and family ............and nobody else!! Not worth 5 minutes or more of news in each bulletin.

[Ann]

//Waiting for results by post? How quaint//
Gosh with those few words Fred, you have suddenly made me feel very very old :) How old are you? Remember we didn't have any of today's modern communications in the mid 60s .........

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

I disagree Ann. Exam results day affects the students, the state, the education system, the employment market and the millions of parents and grandparents.
At the moment I have nobody in my life going through the education system and I'm guessing neither have you, but we are far outnumbered.

[Ann]

I'm not remotely interested Mojo - unless its my family. Even my neighbour flagged us down today to tell us his exciting news that his daughter had got into Uni .................. nice for them, but not worth slowing down on our way to an appointment we thought!

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

Like I said Ann, we're outnumbered.

[invisiblelady]

My two girls have only recently gone through the exam system. Try this. My eldest has always been a total bookworm. She is by far the most intelligent of the two. My youngest hates reading. They both took A level "English Literature." My eldest, after much studying, took the exam. My youngest can't stand reading and so didn't bother actually reading the books and just bought the "study guides" and watched the DVD films of the books. She gained a much higher grade. She knows how to write "exam speak." The whole system is ridiculous in my opinion.

[FredPuli43]

Invisiblelady, I'm 65. Why do you ask? Fleet Street still had printing presses, with hot type, in my student days but, visiting it now, all that seems very long ago .

[invisiblelady]

I just wondered because you said "how quaint" to results being received in the post. But...Oh my goodness! Fancy finding out your results in the newspaper! That must have been awful! We had ours printed in the paper afterwards, but it was at least just a "summary" and not in detail.

[FredPuli43]

Well,invisiblelady, exam technique was always important, even 50 years ago. Examiners always wanted certain key points in answers; however brilliantly you wrote on the others, if you missed one you lost a good many marks. And there was a technque for catching the examiners' interest from the start, so they thought your answer out of the ordinary and different from the repetitive stuff in the other hundreds of papers they had read.

But now, that is all taken to extremes it seems, and pupils are taught to study 'to the exam', with the techniques demanded, rather than actually know the subject itself in depth, with all its variety. That's probably why your reader child didn't fare as well as the DVD user.