Colm Fitzpatrick
Colm Fitzpatrick explores whether exams are putting young people to the test
Exams are part and parcel of student life, but all too often the stress that accompanies them can leave pupils in a state of despair and anxiety. Are students putting too much pressure on themselves, or should they be encouraged to learn skills to cope with these exams struggles?
Exam stress is a major component across all secondary schools, which can have a serious effect on young people’s physical and mental health. In a report last year entitled ‘So, How Was School Today?’, almost three quarters of students felt either “very stressed” or “stressed” over exams, which was also compounded by pressure from homework and revision. This is not a uniquely Irish issue. Indeed, one university in America has even introduced a ‘Crying Closet’ for students stressed out by exams. The safe space provides students with an opportunity to take a 10-minute break from studying.
For St Paul’s principal in Armagh, Jarlath Burns, students are extremely stressed around the exam period, and need to be given the correct supports to manage this. “We’ve decided to have a positive mental health week for our students…we just thought there was a need for it because at this time of year, the coursework deadlines with the exams looming, we find that it does cause quite a lot of stress and we’re putting a lot of emphasis on the things that people can do themselves to help stress,” Mr Burns says.
Notably, many students are willing to spend extra time in school to study, either because work cannot be completed at home because of distractions, or because pupils want to focus more on their revision.
“The other thing we’re doing in our school is giving students the opportunity to study,” Jarlath explains, noting that social media can suck up important time.
“We have introduced a Thursday study and Sunday study in school which has really helped them. Now that’s Thursday from 4-7pm, and Sunday from 5:30-8:30pm, which I take myself.”
Revision class
He adds that even during the Easter weekend or the May Day Bank Holiday, pupils still want the after-school revision class to be run.
The dynamic of stress has also changed in Northern Irish schools, following the introduction of coursework, meaning that stress is not isolated to just June, but actually persists throughout the year. Yet, in Jarlath’s experience as a principal, exams or coursework are not the sole contributors to stress, but rather students’ increasing expectations of themselves.
“I think it’s just now that children are more ambitious. They are more focused on what they want and they’re trying harder…there is this desire among young Northern people that they feel that they want to go to Belfast,” Jarlath says.
“They want to spend three or four years in Belfast living that student life, loosely focused around what their long-term ambition is, and now it almost seems to be a rite of passage for all students that they want to be able to go Belfast and that’s where they begin the process of independent living and being away from home. That’s what they’re aiming for,” he says, adding that this may be a slight generalisation but it’s what many pupils want.
Expectations
Likewise, chaplain Aoife Daly in Meath’s Boyne Community School believes that students are extremely stressed because of their high expectations. For her, however, these types of expectations can actually be negative because “students are not going to achieve what they want to achieve”, she says.
“They’re not willing to put in the work but they have huge expectations of what’s going to happen,” Aoife explains, pointing out that some students want to go to universities such as Trinity, despite it being impossible for them to achieve the points required to be accepted. She adds that parents are partly responsible for this mentality because they’re afraid of disciplining or pushing their child as the pressure can become even more insurmountable.
In her view, stress is the result of higher ambitions combined with little or no work to account for this. Those pupils that actively put in the effort to work and revise seem to be less affected by stress and anxiety.
“They seem to be better planners, they have more forward thinking, they have good parental support, they work very hard, they set their goals and they’re realistic. Now one or two of them put extra pressure on themselves, they suffer a little bit more anxiety and stuff, but they’re in the minority in my experience,” Aoife explains.
“For the majority, a lot of the times they just don’t want to put in the work. The want it done now. They want to Google it and get the information immediately. They don’t want to have to do the research, they don’t want to have to learn it. They find it difficult to produce back the work again because they haven’t learned it right.”
A study carried out by GL Assessment this year revealed that out of 850,000 school children almost one fifth of them have negative feelings towards school and had low or moderately low attitudes to perceived learning capability and self-regard. The report concluded that some possible barriers to learning included issues around confidence, resilience, motivation, concentration, disaffection and alienation.
For Jarlath, the ambition of children is positive, so rather than reduce the amount of stress they’re experiencing, support structures like teaching the benefits of resilience should be implemented.
Potential
“I think society is telling them that they can be who they want to be and what they can be and that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing that they want to make the most of their talents, they want to fulfil their potential. They know it takes work and it takes a certain amount of stress,” he says, noting that the challenge is to teach pupils how to cope with the stress they have now rather than attempting to lessen it.
Faith has varying degrees of significance for students also, with some pupils finding no resolve in religious belief or practice, whereas for others it can help centralise them as well as allow them to see the bigger picture of life without an exam-focused lens.
Aoife points out that there is such a “loss” of Faith among students, and that very few families attend the annual parish Mass to celebrate the academic year.
“Their grannies would pray for them, but they themselves won’t put any faith in their Faith,” she says.
On the other hand, Jarlath finds that students are strengthened by their Faith, and are taught that exams are not the end all or be all.
“We have a big mural along the side of our assembly hall – ‘Trust in God’ – and I suppose that’s what we’re really trying to get them to do. If you work very, very hard, just put your Faith in the Lord for the rest of it and hopefully it will work out for you – and if it doesn’t, it’s not the end of it. There are plenty of soft landings for pupils where it doesn’t happen for them the first time around,” Jarlath says.
It is evident from these perspectives that students nowadays are extremely stressed, but it is still unclear whether this should be reduced by being realistic with one’s own expectations, or alternatively be accepted, accompanied with teaching about how to manage it.
In any case, as Aoife points out, children should work hard and not associate their self-worth based on the results they achieve in these coming exams.
“I would just say do your best, do what you can, and you are more than the exam in June.”