all around this green and pleasant land

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There be thousands upon thousands of young people {and a fair few oldies too} waking up this morning, rubbing the sleep from their eyes as butterflies invade their tummies; today is GCSE {General Certificate of Secondary Education} English Language Paper 1 Day. Oh, the excitement. GCSE exams are taken at the end of Year 11 when pupils are sixteen. Once upon a time, in their infinite wisdom, the government of this land decided that anybody who 'failed' their English and Maths GCSE had to continue retaking it until they passed, were at least nineteen, and/or had left the education system. A 'fail' is anything below a C grade. Except now it's anything below a 4, and don't even get me started on that. We had a perfectly good, easy and simple, A to G system and they decided that numbers would be better. Seriously, who are these imbeciles? So, most of our students come to us at sixteen believing that they are failures. As long as they achieved at least a G/1 in a subject, they have not failed that subject and they do have a GCSE in it. But it's just not good enough in English and Maths. And so they have to go through the rigmarole all over again, often with tutors who have little to no experience teaching in secondary schools, and who teach in a different way, which results in confusion and frustration and much stamping of footsies. Oh, and students are now entitled to such things as coloured paper, a reader, a scribe, their own room, rest breaks, prompters ... We are creating a generation of monsters. Entitled monsters. But I digress. Many of our students will be taking their English Language GCSE for the second, third, even fourth time, today. And August will roll around, results will be posted and for many of our students they will face 'failure' and another retake next year. Not just Entitled Monsters, but Entitled Monsters teeming with Negativity and feelings of not being Good Enough. Bless them.