The language we use around young
people of all ages is important to get right. From as young as eight months,
children are picking up the words and phrases that adults use and assimilating
them into their vocabulary. I am sure there are a more than a few
parents out there who can recall the first time they heard their two year-old
calmly blurt out a swear word – usually somewhere in a public place.
However this isn’t really a piece
about taking care not swear in the presence of young ears, although
the title might well suggest this. I am thinking specifically of another kind
of ‘bad language’ that we use around students that I believe we need to be mindful of.
In secondary schools up and down the
UK, we are letting our students down with just two little words, ‘pass’ and ‘fail.’
Despite a robust grade system, that charts a student’s progress throughout
their school years, the language that we are using to describe their progress itself
fails to recognise the incremental achievements that students are making, and
the effort they are putting in.
A student we worked with in school a
few years ago, started Year 11 with a Grade 1 in maths and was already feeling
like a failure due to years of being told that she was not ‘good at maths’ and working
well behind her peers. Encouraged by a patient teacher and extra coaching
sessions, this student was making steady progress by Christmas and achieved a
Grade 2 in their mock exam.
Naturally she was pleased to have
moved up a grade and this spurred her on to continue to try her best and work
hard to achieve that all important door opener – a Grade 4. By the Easter mocks, she was performing significantly better in past papers and seemed to be
edging closer and closer to the next grade, this gave her hope that she might
reach a Grade 4 by the May exams.
Despite her achievements, she was
disappointed by her final GCSE grade on opening her exam results in August. She
told me that she had ‘failed miserably’ and was incredibly despondent. Although
she did manage to secure a solid Grade 3, she could not see the two grades
progress as an achievement and I believe this is partly because of the language she'd been exposed to. We say that anything less that a grade 4 is a
fail and so that is how students see themselves.
Of course, I am not trying to negate
the fact that there must be a national average for students to work towards and
a standard set, I just wish that the system recognised the effort it took this
student (and hundreds like her) to achieve the Grade 3. In actual fact many
students know that this ‘average’ is really a Grade 5 and that they are still
underachieving if they come out with a Grade 4.
Traditionally these students have to
re-sit their GCSE until they ‘pass’ which prolongs the agony even longer and
further slows down their progress. With maths in particular, the exam doesn’t
necessary prove that an individual has good numeracy skills – there are many
questions on the paper that they will never have to face in real life. However again,
I fully recognise that a standard of numeracy needs to be reached.
Having now taught, coached, mentored
and tutored numerous students over the years, I have witnessed first hand the black and white
way we are responding to their achievements and the negative impact it is having
on our young people. The numbers of students who have low self-esteem, anxiety
and other mental health issues, is rising each year. I feel very strongly that
we need to change the language we use around them. Of course a student knows if
they need a certain grade that they have ‘failed’ if they did not achieve it,
but is it really necessary to keep hammering it home? Who does that help in the
long run? Certainly not the struggling student who is so worried about their performance
in exams that is making them mentally and physically ill.
I have particular concerns about our students
with any type of barrier to learning, including special educational needs, and am reminded
of this famous quote;
I have the pleasure of knowing some
incredibly talented people that this applies to, and they all have major
confidence issues that have affected them their whole life due to how the education system mishandled them.
What is particularly worrying though,
is that we are meeting children as young as six who already know that they are
falling behind in the competitive classroom and Year 6’s who say that they have
‘failed’ their SATs if they get less than 100 on their tests. Over-testing is
partially to blame I feel, but also I wonder if we are making them too aware,
too young, of the levels they need to achieve. Has our keenness to promote
independent learning caused the overburdening of young minds? Are we in danger
of squeezing out all of their creativity by asking them to perform for us
academically at regular intervals?
I am not suggesting for a minute that we go soft on our students, pushing them to foster a good work ethic and understanding the competitive nature of the world is vital to them achieving success in later life. However, I am concerned with our approach to this. Telling a student that they need to ‘work hard and get good grades’ because it ‘increases their opportunities’ is fine but giving the impression that they ‘have one chance to ‘pass’ their GCSEs’ or their ‘life will be over’ is definitely not.
So what language should we be using? Well ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ have their place in education but we need to re-adopt the shades of grey if we are to stop undermining our student's confidence. I don’t feel those words are appropriate at all in primary school and with secondary aged students they should be used where appropriate. I can’t see what the problem is with sticking to the number system we have recently adopted in favour of the letters G – A/A* and avoiding the words ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ altogether.
It might just be semantics to some, but it also may make the difference between a student feeling as though they are working positively towards the next grade rather than feeling that they are a failure - I think that outcome alone might just be worth it.
DU
