In the news

I think if students think that all that matters is exams at the end of two years, it's a risky strategy and goes against what we are telling them (and doesn't often work) - but it's within their rights to give it a go.

I obviously can't speak for where you teach but, having had three kids at three different secondary schools/sixth form colleges in three different London boroughs, the one thing that has been consistent is that they have taught students to pass exams, at the expense of a more holistic or course-based approach. The evidence that I hope will be inluded is the previous cohorts who have performed when they were told it mattered - the exams - even if their course work was not of the same standard.

My ADHD and Dyslexia weren't diagnosed until I was 26, thanks to teachers only looking for that kind of thing in the lower sets. I was good at exams, awful at homework whether coursework or not. I am incapable of revising and incredibly good at winging it (in all contexts). I overanalyse because that's how I learn. I only got a C in A-level Maths+Stats because I couldn't reliably pick apart the nuts and bolts of them without getting misdirected by the maze of suspiciously similar jumbles of symbols and operators.

What I have learned in the almost 8 years since diagnosis is that I engage with people and lived experiences. If I had been a teenager this year, I'd be utterly fucked for life, rather than just wishing I'd been diagnosed before the 4 years that earned me a 2:2 BSc.