A few days ago, I bumped into one of the sixth form girls I teach in the corridor. Being the well-meaning fool I am, I made the classic mistake of asking: “How’s it going?” Thirteen years into teaching I really should know better. Cue a full-blown sobbing fit and 20-minute conversation in the office. The reason? Exam stress.

If you teach exam classes you know the drill: from Christmas onwards, such conversations are a daily feature of the job, and according to the evidence, this is an increasing problem. The question is how to respond, and what note to strike as a professional. For me, we should be building resilience and positive coping strategies rather than over-indulging or over-medicalising exam stress.  

Exams are stressful, exams are hard, and they are meant to be both of these things because they really matter. They help determine transition to post-16 education; they open or close doors to university places, apprenticeship opportunities and potentially help shape career paths. Any young person who cares about their future ought to be at least a little stressed about exams.

Actually, that stress in most cases is beneficial as it focusses the mind on the task at hand and gets the adrenaline flowing. This is why many candidates write more than they have done the rest of the year in the real exam - and why they often write more precisely. 

But as we all know this is a delicate balance, especially for teenagers who are still developing the skill of emotional control under pressure. Part of the trick to developing any skill is practice. In my faculty, we have high stakes testing built into the programme throughout the year, not just to ensure knowledge recall but to make exam conditions a more familiar experience.

Each term there is a big exam-style test based on a significant section of the course. Thorough revision is expected, and any student who gets a grade or more below their target has to repeat the test a week later with new questions on the topic area, and again and again until they get it right.

The purpose is not punitive: it is to ensure that everyone has consistent positive experiences of sitting timed exams that will hopefully build resilience and confidence. As I frequently quip to my students: “The good news is you will all have a positive experience at every assessment point, it just may not happen the first or second time you sit it”.

Setting the tone

An even more important part of getting the balance right happens in everyday conversation in class, in assemblies and in mentoring - it’s about the general tone we set. Students look to the adults in their life to set the example and for guidance: they read a lot into the language we use and our general attitudes. It’s really important that we acknowledge the difficulties students face but avoid indulging anxieties about exams.

I spend a lot of time speaking to my sixth formers about the fact that in the long build-up to exams it is normal to feel stressed, a bit overworked and overwrought, but that they should employ sensible strategies to help manage this very difficult patch.

My go-to analogy at this time of year is lifted straight out of the Shawshank Redemption. When I hear “Sir I’m really stressed”, my regular reply in the build-up to exams is: “Of course you are. Right now you are Andy Dufresne. You’ve spent the last 18 months chipping away at the wall piece by piece and you are now crawling through the pipe for three months”.

This normally raises a pained smile or two, I think for a few reasons. Firstly it acknowledges that there are patches in life that really are not that pleasant and require perseverance to get through them. Secondly, it’s a tongue-in-cheek reminder that actually exam stress is a ‘first world problem’ in the grand scheme of things. I think it does no harm to offer a sense of perspective to Britain’s largely relatively privileged generation of young people that they are very lucky indeed if their biggest problem in life is their exams.

Teachers also have a responsibility to set the right tone post-exam about the need for students to deal with tricky or unexpected questions. The last few years have seen a spate of social media-fuelled ‘days of rage’ about overly tough exam questions: this year’s infamous ‘carrot question’ for example. It’s vital that teachers stand above this emotional furore.

The new GCSEs and A levels by their nature require more lateral and synoptic thinking, and less predictable, more intellectually challenging questions are bound to become more regular. We should encourage our students to be more adaptable in exams, not join in crying foul when a question flips the script a bit.

Focus on control

Sports coaches dealing with refereeing decisions is a decent analogy here. The Rugby club Exeter Chiefs have a coach called Rob Baxter. Baxter is renowned throughout the game for the manner in which he deals with refereeing decisions. Every time the guy is interviewed about contentious decisions, he shuts down any talk of unfairness or how hard done by his players have been. He never plays the victim card. Instead, he returns the focus to what they can do to control things, adapt to unexpected refereeing interpretations and get better outcomes.

I think this is a great example to set. You don’t always get the rub of the green, you don’t always get the exam questions you’d like or asked in the way you are familiar with. But the more you are positively prepared in mindset for dealing with a tough or unexpected question, the more likely you are to adapt when the pressure is on.

There are always going to be extreme cases of exam stress where this “keep calm and carry on” approach is not sufficient. However, I think it’s really important that teachers show leadership in setting this tone for the overwhelming majority of students.

We live in a society increasingly prone to risk-aversion where any kind of discomfort or hardship gets attached the label of being harmful or damaging. In fact, experiencing discomfort is essential in fostering resilience. Therefore, in this current environment, our young people need responsible adults around them to keep their heads and help them put their difficulties in perspective.

Tom Finn-Kelcey is head of social sciences at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham, Kent. He tweets as @TFinnKelcey.