ON ACADEMIC HARVESTS AND THEIR BY-PRODUCTS : A REVIEW OF THE YEAR
High grades have a practical use for students . But they are not our primary purpose , nor should they be .
One of the reasons I applied for a job at Sevenoaks School , many years ago , was a phrase on the school ’ s website at the time , calling good examination results a ‘ by-product ’ of good education . This struck me as exactly the right way of looking at things . We teach to engender a love of learning , an interest in all aspects of the world , a series of life-changing skills , and mastery of a range of subjects . If those things are achieved , then high grades in public examinations naturally follow . And , just as many by-products generated by industry and farming are useful commodities in themselves ( like the straw left over at the end of a grain harvest ), high grades have a practical use for students . But they are not our primary purpose , nor should they be .
It would be nice to be able to write an academic review without using words and phrases like ‘ disruption ’, ‘ exceptional year ’, ‘ unprecedented ’ and ‘ lockdown ’. However , I fear that I may have to wait at least one more year for that . Once again , our Year 11 and Upper Sixth cohorts found themselves looking ahead to their public examinations in a period of great uncertainty , with changing information about likely alterations to examination processes and the awarding of grades . But , once again , they all rose to the challenge with exceptional fortitude , and , even though teachers know that results are only a by-product of learning , it is less easy for a student reading news about the Omicron variant of Covid and its likely effect on their grades to be so sanguine .
This year however , despite the potential for disruption , there was an air of normality to the exam season . IB specifications were reduced a little in many subjects , and some GCSE and IGCSE boards gave advanced information to help students focus their revision , but otherwise students found themselves in a similar world to their predecessors from 2019 and earlier .
8 ACADEMIC REVIEW