School: Target Grades

hello people,
as you can tell I still haven't decided how to start my blog posts yet haha.

Anyway I decided to start a series of posts about school and what confuses me about school, last December. And yes, I am extremely lucky to be getting an education and a lot of people would love to be in my position. What im saying is, I like the idea of school just some rules about my particular school  are unneeded and can really effect how the students feel. These blog posts will essentially be to rant about school and get it out my system but hopefully you'll enjoy it too.

Well now that extremely long winded intro is done, on we go!
The other week at my school we were given yellow cards that listed what we have to aim for, for our GCSEs. I promise I'm not boasting when I say my friend and I both got As and A*s to aim for. You could be thinking that's great, because we can push ourselves and we must be smart. No.

Getting high target grades can make us feel like poop. Because we know we cant reach them and we can't imagine getting anywhere near them, I'll be honest, I am average academically. I'm not particularly smart or any more smart than the girl I sit next to in drama or the boy I see when I walk home. I can do and achieve as much as the next person. So every time I get a B in a test, I'll feel horrible, even when that's something I should be proud of. On the board, there is still a red colour next to my name because I haven't met my target grades, making me feel stupid.

And I'm not trying to get you to read this and thing 'aw'. There is the same thing going on in the opposite way. My friend got Cs and Ds as her targets, which made her feel equally as stupid. It makes her feel as if she cant achieve it and as if the school doesn't think she can reach it. And while she'll have a green colour next to her name when she gets a B on a test, she'll still have a sheet that lists what they think she's capable of.

Overall, I will not want to try because I don't think I can reach my targets, and she will not want to try either because she doesn't think the school thinks enough of her. I honestly don't think target grades should be given out, they make us feel like crap either way. I know, it gives us something to aim for and makes us happy if we exceed them. However, in my case, I cant exceed them because some of them are A*1.

We will try as hard as we can and work as hard as we can and achieve what we can, okay?

'everybody has talent. But if a fish is judged on how well it can climb a tree it will spend it's whole life thinking it's stupid' - anonymous

Hannah. x