Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
A while ago I wrote this post, about exams. I explained that they are not always as important as we think. Sometimes, however, we can’t do without them.
Earlier this year, my son decided to try and switch to a different course at a different institution. The course required GCSE Maths and English, and this time the institution was adamant: no GCSEs, no place.
Have you heard of GCSE equivalency exams? I hadn’t until this summer. They are typically taken by mature students wanting to train as teachers, but lacking the requisite GCSEs. Or sometimes younger students who have taken GCSEs but need to improve their grades quickly.
So for several weeks this summer, our household focussed on maths. It was like the old, home ed days. I won’t pretend it was plain sailing, but with the help of a couple of good friends, one of whom is a maths teacher and provided some excellent tuition, we got through to the exam. After that there was a long wait for results. Yet more uncertainty in a year when we’ve learnt that uncertainty is pretty much all we can rely on!
English was a different matter, didn’t need preparation for someone who reads a lot and writes well, and was accomplished in a day. Thankfully, the results for that one only took 24 hours.
What happened in the end? My son, having previously sailed through everything without any GCSEs at all, now has the required equivalency grades, gained in about six weeks from start to finish. The place he wanted was held open for him and he has started classes (again in this uncertain age I am not sure how much of the teaching is in-person) this week.
Does this mean I am changing my mind about exams not being important? Not at all. They have always been vital for some paths, such as medicine, or legal jobs like the one I used to do, and sometimes, like our experience this year, there is no wriggling out of having to pass them. But what happened to us shows that there is always a way. If you don’t get the grades you think you need at the time you think you should get them, it’s not the end of the world. You can get them later, do it another way, ask questions, find out the alternatives.
And that’s one of my biggest takeaways from home education. It may not be comfortable to create your own path, but it can be done. Things don’t have to be done the way they’ve always been done. Making up your own rules is hard work but it’s immensely satisfying!
