“Have you seen the A levels results?”
“Yeah – but the children of today have it so much easier than we did and the exams are far less difficult.”
If I’d had a hot dinner for every time I’d heard older people making comments like that, I’d have had a lot of hot dinners. I’m sure it’s the same today. “The Class of 2021 achieved record breaking greats.” “Yes, but…” and so on.
For one thing, very few of the people who say exams are so much easier than they used to be actually know that. In my experience, most of the whingers won’t have seen an exam hall for 30 or 40 years. “Yes, but the Daily Mail says,” is the fallback position of know-nothings who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that today’s children are actually pretty bloody clever. And rather than express fake doubts about the validity of today’s exams, how about congratulating the children who obtained them?
I cannot imagine a worse time to have done exams. A level studies must have been so difficult with the Covid pandemic at full blast, with children being sent home or having to work from home or both. To achieve the best results ever rather destroys the myth about the youth of today all being unwashed layabouts who do nothing but arse around on PS4s and mobile phones all day.
I speak as someone who was absolutely hopeless at school, having gained one O level and a small number of useless CSE results in subjects like German, Geology and Geography. My own sons managed stellar A level results and both attended Russell Group universities. This didn’t happen because their studies were simpler than mine: it was because they were far better students than me.
Instead of showing our own ignorance about what it takes to get good qualifications these days, maybe we should accept the truth, which is that this generation is smarter than the one that came before. Isn’t that we’re supposed to want as parents?
