GCSE Results Day 2020 stands to be the strangest results day in recent history. It’s strange enough for educational professionals as they’re asked to effectively and honestly provide students with a grade but how do students feel about it all? A few months ago we shared Zara’s last day with you on the Beyond blog and now we’re sharing her feelings in the run-up to GCSE Results Day 2020.

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It’s been a few months since I last shared my depressing last day at school. These few months have been… boring. A few weeks ago, I should have finished my GCSEs. This was meant to be my 10 week summer of relaxing and feeling proud of all the hard work I’ve put in. Instead, I’ve been at home trying to find some new small project to fill my time.

I may have processed this new-found time I’ve had on my hands, but there’s still that voice in the back of my mind saying you should be doing this right now. It’s like some sort of alternate reality, the world if Covid-19 hadn’t hit, what I would be doing if this virus hadn’t wiped all of that away. 

But, of course, there have to be some positives. I’ve read loads of books, developed my own drawing style, written letters to my Granny, researched certain points in history, had multiple movie marathons with my family, widened my range of cooking and baking and learnt to play the ukulele. If I think about it, I’ve actually done a lot.

There is one date that every single year 11 is waiting for, Thursday 20th August- GCSE results day. I’m pretty confident that I’ll get the right grades to get me into my A-Level subjects, but that doesn’t mean I’ll achieve as highly as I wanted to. I won’t get that grade 9 in English that I have been working towards since year 7, although I’ll probably get higher in Maths than I ever wanted or expected to get. All in all, I think I’ll get some pretty average grades that will get me to the next stage.

And one question that everyone’s considering, will I feel like I deserve those grades? Will they feel like they’re mine? Honestly, I don’t think so. I didn’t spend months of effort on those grades, I will just be given a sheet of numbers with my name on top. We will always be the year looked down upon, the year that didn’t need hard work to get good grades, the year that got to spend 4 months lazing around instead.

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