Results day

We have between two and three weeks to go before the `A’ level results are published. To be a little more specific, on Thursday, 16 August 2007. At the time of writing this is just over one and a quarter of a million seconds away.

I can remember once seeing a letter from a school advising students not to be away when the results arrived in case they needed to go into `clearing’. I am not sure if there was a general letter to all students or one that was addressed to specific individuals.

In the old days (pre mobile phone and text messages) children were encouraged to lead healthy and fulfilling lives while they waited for results. It now seems almost obligatory for a group of students to go off for a week or two of fun and late nights.(And good luck to them!)

The days of anxious students and their parents hanging around the school gate are not over in all schools – but finding out results has started to move with the time. Some `A’ level youngsters are given their results through a text message. Other can go on line and look their scores up – and even see the marking done by the examiner.

The television stations also get in on the results act every year with photographs, interviews and careful scripts. It is amazing how the TV authorities always try to call on healthy and bonny folk to be selected.

Some eleven plus parents like to open the dreaded envelope themselves – others prefer their child to do open the envelope.

We have well over a hundred ex `A' youngsters who are working for us and are waiting for results. We wish them well and hope they do as well as they hoped.