Last week, during a train ride, I met a woman who told me about her two sons who were currently taking their GCSEs and A-levels. As a mother of stressed teenagers, she confided in me that it was difficult to deal with their anxiety. However, her situation was more challenging than most. Her husband had passed away last November. She disclosed to me that exam boards could provide up to 5% extra marks for students who have experienced a bereavement in the past six months. Unfortunately, her husband’s death was just two weeks too early to qualify for this assistance.
I decided to research this matter to clarify if what she said was true. To my dismay, I discovered a "misery rate card" published annually by the Joint Council of Qualifications that outlines the extra marks that are granted due to severe bodily injury (4%), physical assault before the exam (3%), or minor ailments such as hay fever (1%). Although exam boards aim for fairness, bereavement has the highest impact. Still, the stipulations are rigorous, requiring "recent" grief, which is defined as lasting four months.
Although exam boards try to be compassionate, there is no official support for children who undergo bereavement. As a former teacher, I have seen students struggle due to illness, accidents, and traumatic events, such as witnessing a crime. Unfortunately, I could not provide extra support to students who were dealing with grief. Once, I scolded a student for her poor grades, not realizing that her mother had passed away a year earlier. Although her mother could not be brought back, I encouraged her to pursue university, providing her with the opportunity to obtain the life she wished for.
The evidence indicates that grief can have a lasting impact on GCSE results. A study conducted in 2004 found that students who had experienced bereavement achieved exam marks that were half a grade lower than their expected scores. Another Swedish cohort study revealed that a parent’s death affected grades even after controlling for all other variables, including socio-economics and mental health. More recently, a Danish study ascertained that bereaved males were 26% less likely to attain degrees compared to their peers.
The education system relies on the pupils being perfectly poised to achieve their best performances in the summers when they are 16 and 18. Unfortunately, the current system does not offer easy solutions for those who fail to accomplish this task. One solution would be to offer immediate resits for GCSE and A-level exams each summer, similar to universities. Alternatively, exam boards could enable resits in exams as candidates get older, providing opportunities for their improved scores to be reflected in their transcripts. If exams were online, each candidate could receive questions tailored to their syllabus, and their exams could be automatically graded.
In conclusion, implementing these ideas would require creativity and imagination, but this approach would be kinder and more positive than the existing system that often leads to despair.