As I sit in the crowded church hall waiting room, the aroma of used bible and damp trouser lingering in the air, I realise that my exam prep sessions with students have always been lacking.
I’m squished betwixt a twitchy young woman, clutching a copy of her set text as if it’s the safety bar of the Big Dipper, and a silver-haired gent who’s concentrating so determinedly on seeming nonchalant that stress seeps out of him like a radioactive glow.
My stomach makes a sound similar to that of an old settee being dragged across floorboards and I think I may have some emergency bathroom requirements in the offing. I start to picture myself during the exam, urgently needing to go and the invigilator threatening to tear up my script if I choose to leave the room. I will literally shit myself rather than lose marks. That’ll teach her.
I look outside and see a few slightly more relaxed people having a pre-exam ciggy. I wonder if there’s time to take up smoking. Or horse tranquillisers. Anything to take the edge off.
As I begin to regret every choice I’ve made that led me to this moment, the invigilator enters. She’s not a looming ghoul. She’s a nice lady with an Open University badge and a clipboard. I imagine she’s called Joyce.
She reads a list of instructions that I forget within seconds.
By this point, I’d rather undergo minor surgery than walk into the hall, but I follow the silent crowd anyway. The room has rows of those flimsy desks that look like Poundland deckchairs. I find the one with my name printed on a slip of paper and unpack my sandwich bag of assorted biros. Two realisations hit me: 1) I’m not confident that I can operate on a desk the size of a tea tray, and 2) I haven’t practised writing by hand and must now do so non-stop for three hours.
After ignoring even more detailed instructions from the lovely Joyce, and waiting for what seems like hours, at 2.30pm on the dot, we begin.
Reading the essay questions, I realise I’ve revised harder for this than any other test in my life. My intestinal jitters slowly dissolve and, despite my increasingly crampy hand, I scribble with intent. Three hours feels like 10 minutes.
The last time I remember going into an exam hall I was 16. The results of those exams have an impact. For most, they determine at a minimum the next two years. The results of this exam matter not one jot to anyone except me. Not to my work, nor my potential earnings, just a measure of my recent learning. I took an Open University course for fun, to learn stuff. It’s been a phenomenal experience. Life-changing.
But if the physical and emotional turmoil of taking an exam did this to me - a world-weary old boot with buckets of experience of both failure and success - what impact does it have on our students? I don’t yet know how my experience will alter the way I teach, but it’s given me a new-found respect for the people I teach.
Sarah Simons works in colleges and adult community education in the East Midlands, and is the director of UKFEchat. She tweets @MrsSarahSimons
