A Level Results Day: The day to support young people not run down their hard work

A level Results Day: Boys can leap in the air as well as girls!

The iconic picture of A Level Results Day has become pretty girls opening envelopes where they get great results and leap in the air with joy. There is nothing wrong with this. It is celebrating success. Might be nice to see some more boys featured but still like athletes winning in the Olympics there is nothing wrong with celebrating the success of those who have done well in their A Levels.

But for others the dreaded envelope might bring less welcome news. Like those young people I too once opened a brown envelope that left me less than happy but at least I did not have to pick up a newspaper that told me the exams had “got easier” to add insult to my injury.

And that is the point of this short post. By writing articles and general chatter on Twitter that suggest  A Levels are “dummed down” and “easier” we do two things. We undermine the success of those who did well and we add to the misery of those who did not do as well as they wanted.

So this is a plea to leave this debate for another time not because it isn’t important but out of basic human decency. Leave the argument for another day or preferably week and allow today’s students to celebrate their success or drown their misery in peace.

Having re-sat my A-Levels I did go to University and graduated. Only to go home after my graduation ceremony to see it was used as a photo background for a TV piece on graduate unemployment! That really helped!!

So to those in the media let’s have plenty of leaping boys and girls, plenty of practical help and advice but avoid a discussion of the merits or otherwise of A Level exams. At least for today.