RAG. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fails.

Being on the RED cohort, as I have been since this ridiculous system was installed in school, I have been to most of the revision sessions there is science, art e.t.c. I appreciate that school are willing to help the ‘underachievers’ and so I attend all of the sessions that they want me to, or should I say the system dictates I must. However when I attend these sessions I find regularly that they are of little or of no use to me for one reason in particular. Multi-ability classes. When I have to sit there watching the hands on the clock move slower than traffic on a Friday listening to the teacher explain to the class things that are not relevant to my education I get slightly ticked off. I’m not slagging the people in the lower ability groups, I myself have many friends who are in the ‘B’ band, I’m just saying that when they’re not even sitting the same paper let alone tier as me it seems a bit pointless to mash us all together. The same applies with my lessons for several of my options. Being told by a teacher that we have to answer a set of questions. Fine. Being told by a teacher that we have to answer a set of a questions and then being forced to listen as she answers every single one. Humiliating. Patronising. Stupid.
I had a meeting the other week with a member of the Upper School Office team, a nice lady, she, like many others before her said the same thing to me. She wasn’t worried about me. Some people would take this as an insult but I fully understood what she meant. Unlike many of the people she had been meeting with my target grades were not below C, they were actually quite high.
Another incident occurred the other day as well. Whilst in a class of some of the brightest students in the year the teacher made the comment that ‘I don’t think that anyone in here would be underachieving in 5 or more subjects’ or something to that affect. Raises Hand.

Let’s break it down:
RED: 6 subjects
Amber: 4 subjects
Green: 1 subject.

To me this means that not only do I have to attend after school, I will not be allowed study leave this year. This apparently worked with excellent results last year. Having never talked to a Sixth Former who this applied to I can’t say whether it did or didn’t work, but it’s a bit late to start worrying about that. To become a member of the Amber cohort I would have to, in total, increase my grades by 9 grades i.e. to go from RED to AMBER in art I would have to move up from a B to an A which classes as an increase of 1 grade. Add it up across the board makes 9 grades like I said. In two months???? Not going to happen.Now even more ridiculous is the increase to go from RED to GREEN which totals up to be 19 grades altogether, I’m not even going to try. Why bother? For me I am pleased with my grades & consequently ignore the RAG system where possible, my parents are pleased with my grades and have told me that they are proud of me and that I shouldn’t let it bother me. I try not to. Everyone knows whether you have or haven’t been in year 11 that it is a time when immense pressure is placed on students. Imagine (or remember that). Now imagine (or remember) that with the fact hanging over your shoulders that you are UNDERACHIEVING and because you are UNDERACHIEVING you shall not receive not study leave, you, because you are UNDERACHIEVING shall attend revision sessions. Also as it has been hinted because you are UNDERACHIEVING you may not be allowed to attend the prom. Hell why not give me a RED armband and make me eat with people of the same cohort.


I'm passive, I don't get angry unless someone really annoys me.


For anyone else who is one RED these might come in handy:

Childline: 0800 11 11

The Market Place: 0113 2461659


If you can't remember then they're in the whit pages of your planner under the heading 'Useful Numbers & Sources Of Support'. I wonder why school felt that we would need these?

AQA Examinations.

Exams, the most crucial part of a students "career". However it is also the most boring and tediously exhausting part. So when that Exam finally finishes you get to go home, put your feet up and relax. Well not in Temple Moor.

Though we are partial to praise and it's always nice to be praised. There are some times when you simply can't be arsed. Last week and this week, year 11s and a few year 10s have been taking part in GCSE Mocks. And so far the end of every test, pupils have to sit an extra 10 minutes being told how good they are. Aren't you normally kept back for being bad?
The latest culprit being the headmaster (we refuse to call him principle) who gave us an unnecessary pat on the back.
We do however congratulate you if you have been taking an exam this week. Our congratulations is better as you're not being kept 10 minutes in a cold sports hall while waiting to go home.

Now onto the actual tests. The school doesn't appear to want to create its own tests for the mocks. Instead it decides to steal previous papers to use. However this means they usually contain subjects we haven't yet covered. This leads to some tests being annoyingly hard. However tests being too hard is not where AQA fail. No it's when they make the tests too easy. Resulting in the rather Epic Lulz.
An example of this is the IT paper pupils sat today. It was 1 hour 30 for foundation and 2 hour for Higher. However with these questions, it made little difference.
Most questions were multi choice. Tick what you thought was the correct statement. Pretty simple. But not as simple minded as the people who come up with the choices. One question was asking about RFIDs or Radio Frequency Identification Devices. Pretty tricky if you haven't done them yet like our class, unless you were lucky enough to make a comic about RFIDs as apart of your revision. However actual knowledge about RFIDs isn't needed when one of the choices face with is "If you get too many RFIDs together they will create an Evil Network".
Another question was talking about a mapping software called SeeEarth, which is not a total rip of GoogleEarth at all. The specific question was asking why Police couldn't use it to catch criminals. Of course the correct answer has to be "The Crooks might have umbrellas so can't be seen".

This isn't a plea for hard papers. Oh no no. We got a few laughs out of this IT one. But instead we'd like less Rubbish in the questions. And also we'd like questions that isn't rambling nonsense.

In summery: More laughs and less Rubbish in test papers please. And can we please go straight home after an exam. Not wait 10 Minutes.

On a final note to the AQA exam board. The school website can also be a source for 3 year old information like ours is.