Discover Top Posts Tagged with #a level 2020

Class of 2020, anyone else got strong imposter syndrome or am I just over dramatic. I just don't feel I deserve my grades or my place in my classes and because I feel dumb in classes my brain isn't absorbing the information because it doesn't think it can which reinforces the imposter syndrome so now I'm just in a bit of a repetitive cycle.

#class of 2020 #covid class #class of covid #quaranteens #imposter syndrome #imposter #my posts #maybe this us why i like amongus #gcse #alevels #gcse 2020 #a level 2020

a breakdown before school has even started is a new experience

not one that i wanted but apparently I don’t get the choice

#school #back to school #alevel #a levels #a level 2020 #sixth form

Hi everyone, let's talk about A-levels

Okay, so for those who don't know, a levels are the exams we do in England and Wales when we are 18. However, this year they were cancelled.

I've mostly kept quiet about my feelings on this cause I was uncertain on what the future held for me. Plus I've never been certain where I've stood when it has come to exams.

As a mixed, working class and more importantly, physically disabled person, I was expecting to fail my a levels - after all we'd seen the reports on class and racial biased. Plus, I didn't know how my disability - arthritis, played into the ranking system, as my grades constantly fluctuated based on my flare ups. So when Thursday came, I braced myself for the ds I thought I was going to get, and opened my online results.

... I got 3 bs and an a*.

I was shocked to say the least. I thought it was a fluke because I had never been considered for the top grade before - no teacher had ever put me up there.

But I went into school, got a physical copy of my results and talk to my teachers. And that's when I find out.

In my English and history coursework, I got an A. In English and History, both teachers saw me as an A student. Something which I had no idea of.

Apparently in history, by the time I had left, I was getting an A in the Germany unit, however I had no idea of this. You see, all of my essays are done digitally, and so I never got them sent back - and the only essays I had on me were the ones where I barely got Bs and Cs.

I had the same teachers for English and creative writing, and yet I thought I was barely passing those subjects as well, cause I tended not to do well in the exams. Until this one exam where I got an a and everyone else in the class failed.

Even in politics, I honestly thought I was getting a d everytime I handed in an essay. Yet I was one of the better students in the class, who got Bs and As on her essay?

Anyway the reason why I am saying all this stuff, is that I'm not sure how to feel. On one hand, I don't think this was my teachers fault that I felt like I was going to fail, because it's not like they were really hard on me. If anything, from a young age, I'd learnt that I wasn't the first pick for the school. But on the other, I wish they'd at least let me know before the day of results, cause then I would have continued working hard and would have happily taken the exams - and if it had gone like they were suggesting it would have in May, I probably would have got grades above what I was given (obviously minus the a*)

The thing is though, I don't know why I wasn't expecting to get good grades?

Like all my life, I've tended to do well in exams. In the banding stuff from year 5, I got a 1A, the highest band you could get, in Sats in year 6, I got the highest grade you could get without taking level 6.

Even during GCSEs which was arguably my weakest time, I managed to get an 8, 2 7s and several 6s whilst having a very painful, swollen hand and wrist.

So I probably would have got good grades in the exams had I sat them.

Honestly, I think it all comes down to my disability.

Like I remember not being accepted into doing level 6 at primary school because I was one sub level (a 5b) below in English. Yet I was still able to get to that grade without a laptop - something which I was legally entitled to for every exam).

I remember not taking the 11 plus exam to get into a grammar school in year 6 and feeling dumber than the other kids cause they all had. Yet the reason why I didn't take the exam was because the nearest grammar school was too far away for me and we couldn't afford a taxi everyday to take me to the school.

I remember teachers encouraging me to write stuff down rather than type because it was easier for them to mark, and so I wouldn't learn the skills necessary for typing in exams.

Hell, I remember one gcse exam when I couldn't finish my paper because my hand had started swelling up in the exam. Yet I still felt bad when the lower grade came in.

I think it was all of this that got me to be happy with my results and shocked that they were so high, instead of being upset that they had been moved down.

Had it gone the way my teachers wanted, it would have been A*AAB. And I just want to say, that I finally feel like I do deserve it.

#a levels #a level 2020 #studyblr #exams #results #ableism #arthritis #be proud of yourself

13/08/2020:

Dear those getting A-Level results today,

First of all congratulations!! you have completed the hardest years of education during a year where everything has crumbled down around you. if no one has told you, i’m bloody proud of each and everyone of you amazing people!!

the government is a little bit silly (read: a lot, ohh jeremy corbyn, anyways...) and have decided to mess with your hard earn grades and some of you don’t have the grades you aspired to have. however bleak things seem right now. they will not stay like this. there are always options for you: appeals, clearing, gap year (although i am aware of the current difficulties for this) and retakes. but at the same time you didnt deserve to be screwed over. you have every right to be angry asf over this, if it was my year group, we would.

your year group is one of the most dedicated year groups ive seen in a long time, you not only dealt with complete gcse reforms (as a y11 leaver of 2017 with only english and maths on the new system, i can only imagine how you guys felt) and now one of the craziest years of your life has become FAR too crazy. and whilst you are all a bloody talented bunch, you are worth more than your grades. intrinsically you are worth way more.

nothing is ever set in stone, i left sixth form last year to head and do a forensic psych degree, but i changed course. and that is okay. you grow and change and you may learn that your life ambitions change, or not. whatever happens next, you are strong all of you and i love you all.

much love,

jen xxx