The back-to-school landscape is often categorised by celebrities humblebragging about how their bad grades had no lasting impact on their eventual amazing life. “I think of Jeremy Clarkson,” writes the head teacher author of Exam Nation, “ritually tweeting every exam season about how he failed his A-levels and he’s done all right.”
On the one hand, we tell young people that exams make no difference and you can still have a great life if education doesn’t work out for you. Which is, of course, true. But on the other hand, we continue to pressurise children and grade them and rank them in relation to one another. Which, naturally, can also have its practical merits. Exam Nation is an attempt to chart a path between these two extremes. It’s an essential read – as entertaining as it is insightful – for anyone who cares about the way we treat young people.
