Exam Anxiety and Pastoral Leadership
As I type this hundreds of thousands of students across the globe are sitting their IGCSE, IB and other exams. Many, if not most of these students, are entering the exam rooms aware that their learning experience this year may vary greatly from their peers sitting the same exam in different countries. This, and several other factors, are creating an intense amount of anxiety and frustration. For instance, “…Hundreds of Hong Kong pupils taking the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams this week want to be allowed to skip the tests, calling a new policy that guarantees certain grades for those who could not take the assessment during the coronavirus pandemic unfair.”
I believe the students in Hong Kong make a very fair point. Many of the schools I work within China have been able to implement a relatively ‘normal’ timetable in 2021-22, reassuring parents that there wouldn’t be any disruptions to student learning, and more importantly student attainment. However, maintaining a ‘normal’ timetable does not mean the learning environment has been normal. Noel Roberts of ZHL Consulting in Chengdu reports, “Every week I get increasing calls from schools regarding interventions related to trauma, anxiety, depression, disconnected students, adverse childhood experiences, bullying, social and emotional health, suicide prevention, and other mental health and psychosocial concerns.”
The purpose of this article is to first ask educational leaders to acknowledge and recognize students sitting exams that they are performing under extraordinary conditions that no peer before them, and hopefully after them, has ever endured. Secondly, many parents I fear don’t fully appreciate this feat that their child is undertaking, nor recognize the considerable anxiety these students may be experiencing about their future. Lastly, most if not all schools have some form of pastoral leadership. Now is when we need to free our pastoral leaders to spend more time supporting students and their families to address the anxiety, depression and trauma they are experiencing.
To support pastoral leaders, I have researched and listed several articles that you can access below:
This post from TheConversation should be reassuring to both students and counselors, and is one of many articles I found espousing the same message, “no one expects students to perform the same as before the pandemic.” Additionally, this post from the site is worth sharing with parents, just to get the conversation started about being more observant of their child’s behaviour during this period.
Two great take-aways from this American Psychological Association paper on student stress, which is only 2 pages, is the importance of helping students set expectations for how they will perform as well as focus on things they can control.
Many of the articles I researched all had similar recommendations, this article probably captures all of them in a single short read: 9 Self-Care Tips for Students for IGCSE & IB DP Exams. This is a checklist you can share with students and parents.
From these two links you can find an update from the International Baccalaureate on the dual tracks it is offering students for the IB Diploma and Career Programmes, as well as some advice from a former IB Diploma Programme Graduate and now Diploma Programme teacher on Effective self-soothing techniques to cope with COVID-19.
