Hi, I’m a failure

Yesterday, I received my second year university results. Overall, I was less than 1% away from receiving a 2.1. I considered myself to have failed.

I am a product of the English grammar school system.

In Year 6, I received 139 out of 141 on the 11+, a test which allows us to be divided up like bananas in a warehouse into Good and Not So Good, with the Good ones being privileged enough to be allowed to apply to schools that churn out bananas that get the top grades and famously end up at #better universities, and all-in-all end up with #better lives. You may be wondering why I’m using all this passive aggressive capitalisation and hashtagging; don’t worry, I’ll get to that.

At the age of 11, I decided that I wanted to go to St. Vodka’s, an all-girls’ grammar school in the posh town near me. We were told that we would be taking a number of GCSEs early, so that when it came to our actual GCSEs at 16 we would have more time to focus on these. I sat French and ICT at 14, two full years earlier than I had anticipated. The next year, I sat Spanish and Product Design. I forget whether it was Year 8 or 9 that we were informed of this decision by the school, but either way I had less than two years to learn two brand new languages up to examination standard, and for young and impressionable young people, this amount of stress can have an adverse effect.

In Year 11, I got a B in my Maths GCSE mock exam. The national statistics show that in 2011, 15.5% of students across the UK achieved a B in Maths, yet St. Vodka’s saw fit to call me into a private meeting with the Head of Maths (and my mother) to discuss why I was ‘underachieving’. My school performance at age 16 was compared to that of little Year 4 me (aged 8), who was supposedly so full of promise and anticipated to be an excellent student. I was put into *special extra classes* once a week. I got them their A. I could have gotten a B and been perfectly happy, but instead I was subject to an inordinate amount of pressure because someone else decided that I could do better.

By the end of Year 11, I was sick of St Vodka’s and decided to switch to the other girls’ grammar in the next town along, Sangria Prep, where the majority of my closest friends went. Unbeknown to me, I might have been making of those frying pan/fire movements, as I soon found out that at Sangria Prep, students who received a B in GCSE Maths were made to write a letter of apology to the Head Teacher, on account of having letting her and the school down. Right from the offset it was common knowledge that students not pursuing science or humanities would not be given the time of day. At both grammar schools I had been advised to choose ‘facilitating subjects’ so that I might have better job prospects, which, as an idea, is beneficial to students, but when students did not choose to take this advice or disobeyed instruction in even one instance they were immediately pushed to the bottom of the pile and barely given the time of day. Friends who studied drama and art were encouraged not to go to the A Level options meeting, or pulled aside and told by a teacher that they ‘didn’t want them to end up living as a hippy making jewellery out of hemp’, because apparently according to this teacher that kind of life choice would have been beneath her. Picking arts subjects was rebellion enough, God forbid that someone might not want to go to university. When a friend of mine had a meeting with one of our Heads of Year about her options, she stated that she wished to become an air hostess, to which our Head of Year responded with a boorish impression of pushing a trolley and offering ‘a little cup of tea’ to passengers. Not only is it disgusting that a teacher, a fully grown adult of (hopefully) almost retiring age, would mock an impressionable 17 year old disclosing her ambitions, but this type of behaviour is also symptomatic of the kind of snobbery that runs rampant in grammar schools. Choosing not to go to university is by no means an ‘easy way out’, and does not make you a slacker or a disappointment, yet students at my school were made to feel like following anything other path than that which was predetermined as Correct and Good by Sangria Prep was despicable and unacceptable.

Around 600–800 young people kill themselves every year, with stress, in particular academic stress, being a large contributing factor. I have seen first hand how students can end up depressed, anxious, self-harming or with eating disorders as a result of the pressure they are subject to at grammar school. At school we are taught about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, given focus days specifically about these subjects, but never any warning about what can happen when you prioritise good grades over good mental health. At my sister’s school, she was taught to speak Spanish, I was taught how to pass an exam. I took Chemistry and Biology because that made me a worthwhile student, and despite the fact that I had decided two months into Year 12 that I didn’t want to study Zoology, I repeated this line over and over for two years in order to stay true to the grammar way. A friend was called to an ‘emergency meeting’ because she hadn’t applied to Oxbridge. At a Sports Day once the team coming last finally crossed the finish line and the crowd cheered, to which our head teacher shouted “we do not celebrate failure”.

I understand the desire for grammar schools (and schools in general) to churn out students with good grades who will become successful, but when that success comes at the detriment of the rest of their lives, is it really worth it? Can any establishment honestly say that they are happy to sacrifice a few lives or have a handful of students starving themselves because they will probably end up with good grades in the end? I almost achieved a 2.1 for second year, and when I saw my results I considered it a failure. Anything less than a first is a failure. I, and thousands of people like me, have grown up with this mentality, that if we don’t look good on paper that we are Bad, or that we are stupid. Grammar schools could be a good thing, if we are prepared to put measures in place to fully support students and keep tabs on them in the event that the pressure being placed upon them becomes too much. Learning to recognise the symptoms of crisis in students should be a top priority training day for all teachers and academic staff, and school curriculum must adapt to incorporate teaching about other options. If I had been told, no, taught when I was younger that my grades were not the best thing about me, then maybe when I opened those results I’d see a high 2.2 and be happy and proud, not disappointed and like I’d let myself down. School can be fun, and it can be enjoyable, but the way we’re teaching our ‘brightest stars’ has a tendency to almost extinguish them. It might be too late for our generation, I don’t expect change like this to happen as rapidly as it rightfully needs to, but I know that I for one won’t be letting my children grow up feeling like a B is a fail. My grandma always tells me that as long as I’ve done my best, she’s proud of me. I hope one day schools will teach that to their kids.