Sup teenagers, this one is for you! (Well, I’ve tried and now we’re all embarrassed, but if you are years 9 and 11, I’m thinking of you in particular).
You have dealt with changes to curriculum, uncertainty that exams will take place, and absence due to illness. I can predict that the examination season will bring the best weather of the summer, because it always does, and you will be stuck indoors with your books and laptops, checking the final details. A note from this older wiser one (!), don’t try to revise and sunbathe, it doesn’t work. Oh, and it is true that you won’t need in real life everything you have learnt now, sorry!
You see that adult, hovering close by? Have they judged the right distance to re-fill snacks and drinks and let you know they are there if you need them. Feel free to grouch at them now, because we remember the anxiety too, and everyone understands.
We all keep watch in different ways over you, the young people that we know. We’re concerned for your well-being, and we are willing you on to do the best you can in these unusual, difficult circumstances. If you don’t have a supportive home (perhaps in care or perhaps your parents are under great stress) I hope that someone is there for them, to care, calm or encourage as necessary.
Soon the exam season will be over and for a few weeks you will enjoy that sense of freedom before the next stage begins. You will hang out with friends, we will hear your strange music and remember that we too probably did just the same.
Your results may please or frustrate you, but they will never show the extent of the resilience that you have shown in these last years. Results will not demonstrate your ability to adopt new ways of learning, nor the way that your generation shows us how to care for and accept each other.
You’ve got this, and remember if you need someone to talk to then there’s an adult lurking somewhere, probably carrying a bar of chocolate for you.
With best wishes, Alison