Today I am sharing a blog post written by my youth Ambassador Ben. Ben has just completed his penultimate year of school and this summer re-sat his GCSE English exam after a disappointing grade last year. He was keen to talk about his experience and give other young people some advice – here is what he had to say:
I am currently going into Year 13 and have just finished Year 12 this summer, when I sat my AS exams in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics.
Last year when I was in Year 11 and studying for my GCSEs, I unfortunately didn’t pass English Language or English Literature exams, getting a Grade 3 and Grade 2. This wasn’t one of my proudest moments but from the day I opened that results envelope I knew I needed to work harder to achieve a Grade 4 in English Language.
On results day last year I felt demotivated as I felt confident leaving the exam hall last summer. I mainly chose to re-sit my English exam because I believed I could do better and achieve the grade I wanted.
I found English Difficult because of 2 reasons. Firstly, as you can probably tell I’m way more passionate about Science and Maths. So, when it came to English being able to write anything and be creative was quite difficult because in science there’s manly only one answer. Secondly, I have ADHD and Development Language Disorder (DLD) so I find not just English but the whole of school difficult. I find it difficult to sit still to pay attention – all I want to be doing is moving around. But, DLD has the main impact on why I find English so hard. DLD is a little but like dyslexia, where you struggle with written languages.
After choosing to re-sit the exam, I made a plan. I had one on one lessons with two English teachers at my Sixth Form, and I can truly say if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have even thought that I’d be able to have a chance to pass English again. When I sat the first exam paper, I felt confident that I could achieve a pass due to the support I got from those two teachers.
I put in more effort this year and paid more attention to the areas I needed to improve on after last year’s disappointment. After both exams this year I felt a sigh of relief knowing I worked so hard for this, even if I didn’t improve my grade and get a pass that I could be proud of myself knowing I sat in that exam hall and wrote my heart out.
Like many other young people, coping with stress at A-Levels is quite difficult knowing I had my mock exams at the end of year it was hard to give myself time to de-stress. Some of the things I did were talking to my mentor/tutor at school and having regular meetings with her helped me understand why I felt the way I did. I also went to my judo club and just doing some physical activity took my mind off studying and the exams.
It wasn’t just my mentor who helped. I had a lot of support from my family, they were there for me throughout the last year and continue to be by my side, even if it was a simple “Do your best Ben” from my Nan and Grandad.
If I could go back in time and give myself one piece of advice it would be to talk to more people about how I felt and how stressed I truly was before sitting my exams. Because I was able to speak about how I felt this year, I felt more relaxed.
Some of my next steps going into Year 13 are to work harder than I have ever worked because as my dad would say “It all pays off in the long run” and that’s very true. The only person who can change those grades is you and you need to believe that you can do it and you will.
After Year 13 I am hoping to get into a new teaching apprenticeship so that I can then become a chemistry teacher. I want to support students in my position like I wished I could have had someone there for me.
My last piece of advice for the people opening their results this August is to know that if you didn’t get the grades you wanted, talk to someone and see what you can do to improve it. And for the people going into Year 11 this September, believe in yourself, support the people around you, check up on each other because I know when my friends checked up on me it made me realise how I truly felt about them.
