Does your school pressure you into getting good grades?

[Matt]

Right, so I have my final Year 11 exams starting on Monday for a 2 week time period. Now my school is supposedly one of the best in the state and has always pushed for their students to get in the high 80% mark which for me, who has never been excellent in any subject, is never going to happen. It really bugs me how my school places so much unneccessary pressure on their students just to do well and all in an attempt to make their end of year results for year 12's look amazing so that they can top the leaderboard. To me, schools should be focusing on making their students happy instead of wanting the equivalent of A* in all their students results. Also the competitiveness amongst other students in my classes actually kills me.It's no longer about achieving personal goals and at least passing the subject but instead you need to be in line with everyone else and fit in with all of the other grades. Although you might say to just block it out, it's soooo hard to do this when not only are students rubbing it in every time you get test results back, but the school is pressuring you to achieve something that is highly unlikely to happen. It wasn't like this at my old school and I'm starting to wonder, maybe its only Australian schools that has this problem. I do agree that sometimes pressure from teachers and school is good but in my opinion the extent it is currently at and under my circumstances. this is getting ridiculous and it's not fair on the students.

Anyone else experience/d this???

[Ekelektra]

Hmm my school is also one of the best in the state (of the public, non-selective entry schools. My school is a selective entry accelerated learning school but it's still in the category of the public, non-selective entry).

This year it actually was ranked number one in that category, out of the year 7 and 9 NAPLAN results. The first thing the teachers said to us were 'now we just have to figure out why we're not number one for the year 12 results' and they've been saying other things like that to make us feel guilty for not doing well. Things like "the other year 12 classes did way more study then you guys, you guys are lazy, the common room will be locked if you guys keep on playing games this is year 12 you should only be studying this way you'll get bad scores..."

At the selective entry schools (and I'm sure other schools have done this) they actually don't let you sit the end of year exams if they don't think you will do well, as they don't want their average score to go down due to someone not doing well. I think that's pretty terrible as it's like they only care about their results rather than addressing why their student isn't going to do well.

This doesn't happen at my school from what I've seen, and I don't think the students here are that competitive. Basically the feeling here is that 'all of the SACs during the year don't matter, the only thing that matters is the exams' and as the VCE works so that your score is based on how well your class does on the exam, the teachers have always told us to work together so the whole class does well on the exam, as then we will all do well.

[Eoin247]

While pressure might not be necessary for hard workers who cannot change, it's necessary for the many students that won't do any study otherwise.

How many hours a day does your school tell you to study in the final year? Out of interest.

[Matt]

They don't really tell us how many hours to study, I think they just expect us to get straight home and study until we can't do anymore. I have never been able to study effectively I find it really hard to sit down and study although recently I'm getting a bit better. But yeah, varies from school to school I guess + I'm in Year 11 now so I'm not sure if the school changes their attitude towards year 12's @Eoin247;

Yeah Erin, We get that too. Like today our English teacher said if we all do bad in our english exam we don't only let ourselves down, we let her down, we let the class down and the whole Year 11 cohort down. Talk about giving your students advice and positive advice before their exams haha @Ekelektra;

[lemons]

Of course it does and every school should

What annoys me though is in some schools (not so much mine) teachers just aim to get students to a C grade and don't put enough effort into the students with high potential to get A's and A*'s

I go to an academy and we get a lot of support

[Cerys]

Lmfao every school does

that's why they enter us for exams WAYYY too early - that's why we are forced to resit everything if the school isn't happy with your grade - that's why they fit as many pointless qualifications into our short time there
to make themselves look good

not for our benifit, but for theirs.

[Zak]

My high school were totally unsupportive of me. So not really. All schools/colleges/unis obsess over success and retention rates so it's not surprising if most pressure you.

[MKR&*42]

I think the majority of schools exert extreme amounts of pressure on children to get good grades. They care more about the end goal (good grades , decent funding etc) Than the methods kids go about to reach these goals. It puts far too much pressure on students added to the fact if some parents also pressure their child to do well...

College is better From my experience as most of my teachers have emphasised individual research into subjects alongside classwork and there are courses such as the EPQ which is entirely based on individual research.

Yes I think schools waste time pressuring far too many people to get good grades when they should really focus on encouraging them to develop important skills to use outside the classroom when learning rather Than just regurgitating crap from a textbook.

[.:Wahu:.]

Simple answer, yeah I think they did.
And I got pretty great grades from yrs 7-10 always top 3 in class no study.

But I really had no intention of going to University. Years 11 and 12 I didn't care anymore. I was prepared for my crap grades. Surprisingly I did pass all my subjects, got a pretty crappy ATAR of 42 and made it into Uni.

Suck on that principle! Didn't care my last 2 years of school, knew there were other ways to get where I wanted to be and I have done it haha.

P.S Bit of a ramble to get to the point aye

[karter]

Right I'm in my final year and 70% of my overall score weightage is exams and 30% is projects and assessments and my school had clearly said that if you don't get a good score in the exams your assessment score will be low too regardless how much hard work you've put into it. Also before our final board exams, there's a preparatory exam and if we don't score well in it the school doesn't let us sit in the final exams?? :S Which means you'll have to drop one whole year. Sigh, high school is really hard in my country