Of all the crass messaging that schools put out on results days, an institution boasting that it got its ‘best results ever’ grates on me the most.
Runners up include:
60% of grades A*-A!
and
A*-B up by 20%!
I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone else. In fact, I am still working on breaking the habit.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of our school or college’s success. If students are leaving our institution with great exam results then we should give ourselves a pat on the back. Just not today – not on results day. Today is not about us.
But, you retort, we are celebrating our students’ success.
But are you though? Honestly?
When we quote the percentage of students achieving the highest grades, are we celebrating all of our students? What message are we sending to those students who did really well but didn’t (and weren’t ever likely to) achieve X number of top grades? And when we say results have gone up by Y%, why should this year’s cohort care?
All of our public communications on results day are about signalling – getting a message out to certain people. If this signalling is truly and appropriately about showing how proud you are of your students, then great. But if this messaging is (and let’s dig deep and examine our motivations here) about signalling our organisation’s effectiveness to future students, future parents, colleagues, competitors, whoever, then just stop it. Today is not the day.
Everyone who has responsibility for publishing press releases, updating the school’s website, and pushing out notifications on social media about their school’s or college’s exam results must decide whether to feed into the media frenzy and contribute to a misleading narrative about exam results. We all know that one school may be achieving ‘better results’ than the one down the road because they have a higher attaining intake. We all know that the results represent the grades achieved by those who made it to the end and not those who dropped out along the way. We all know that cohorts differ; that over time things tend to return to the mean. An upward tick this year is often followed by a ‘decline’ in results next year, although that won’t make the press release. We are busy weaving success narratives from an often selective set of statistics because that is the game! God forbid we should refuse to play it.
For today, feel joy for the students who have achieved their best and share the pain of those that haven’t. Quietly recognise the staff who turn up to help hand out results for their hard work. When term begins, thank everyone else too. Write to parents so they can share in the students’ success – we all need to feel we are part of something successful. Then on Open Evening, tell your future parents and students that you are proud of what students at your school or college achieve with the help and expert support provided by your brilliant team.
And if you got your best results ever, then well done you. The world doesn’t need to know.
Matthew Evans 