Hilarie Stelfox: This is the season of exam stress

May 23 2009 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Asthma, allergies and a susceptibility to viral infections are all worsened by exam stress.

Most of us have had to bear exam stress at one time or another and there is the not unreasonable view that it prepares us for the challenges of adult life. However, as a parent I’m seeing the stress from a different perspective. I may even be the cause of some of it.

When Secondborn began exam leave two weeks ago I suggested that she treat each day as if she was going to school, ie: get up at the normal time, study until lunchtime, take a break etc. That way, I assured her, she’d be done by tea time.

That was the theory. In reality, there have been late nights, late mornings and just the teensy weensiest bit of nagging. All right, quite a bit of nagging. Which, according to the Government’s ‘exam doctor’ George Turnbull, employed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, is bad.

“Even if you think your child is not studying hard enough, it is not the best thing to have an argument about it,’’ he says.

Mr Turnbull is an advocate of ‘bite-sized revision’.

I seem to recall Firstborn adopted this approach and for every 10 minutes of studying he spent 40 minutes surfing the internet and checking his MySpace account, then 20 minutes snacking.

My Chinese teacher says the competition for jobs and university places in her home country means that Chinese children study long and hard for the day they take their gaokao, the tough exam that decides if they can access higher education. On average only half those who sit it succeed. Her young son has hours of homework a week from primary school and no time, she says, for much else. English children, she feels, have it easy.

Sadly, I think the pressure on children here is only going to get worse as the economic recession bites and parents fear for their children’s job prospects. But I hope we never reach the stage when young people have no life other than schoolwork.