So young people in Scotland now have their exam results. In the current situation, there has been even more anxiety around exam results than normal. As always, some pupils will be happy with their results and some will not. This year, teachers had to work out estimates for pupils based on their performance over the school year and many pupil’s results had to be downgraded to a lower grade than estimated. This uncertainty means an anxious time for many young people and their parents/carers. The SCCR has some great advice to help people manage anxiety here. I would also encourage you to check out the recent SCCR blog here by Gordon McKinlay who is Head of Schools for Renfrewshire Council. In his blog Gordon advices that ‘the important thing to remember is that a piece of paper from the SQA does not define us. If you do well, congratulations. If you don’t do so well, remember that there will be other ways, other opportunities and other chances’. One final piece of advice that may be helpful to those pupils who didn’t get the results that they hope for comes from Sarah King, who is a lecturer in Law at Dundee University. In the most recent SCCR blog here, Sarah says “One great piece of advice I was given was not to be too set on what you want to do. Instead have a rough idea of your end goal and say yes to the opportunities that take you closer to it. You might end up somewhere completely unexpected but far better than what you originally had in mind.”
