Exams crisis: Why my son is opting out of A-levels to work on farm – Sarah Todd

Now the shopping list reads “pair of steel toe-capped boots” and, instead of A-levels, The Son has got his own way and will be enrolling at agricultural college.

He just can’t imagine going back to the traditional classroom. It’s nobody’s fault, but he’s spent too long away from formal lessons and it’s interesting to wonder whether he’s a one-off or part of a wider backlash against all the controversy that has surrounded academic examinations over recent weeks.

If the Government is true to its word, following its recent U-turn, and awards teachers’ predicted grades, today’s email from the school should be a mixture of As and Bs. Not a brainbox, but the sort of solid student that any sixth form would be pleased to have.

“People have just gone crazy,” he says about exams between checking his bank balance to look at the money he’s earned from his harvest tractor driving job.

Over the past six months he’s transformed from my little lad, to a young man who is at work for 8am and often not back until gone 9pm. His jobs are driving the trailer alongside the combine to collect the corn – a task that would be beyond his mother in spite of her 30 years’ behind the wheel – as well as cultivating the land ready for next year’s crop to be planted.

He’s landed on his feet in that the farmer takes the time to explain things like environmental and cost implications; it really is on-the-job learning. He is trusted to operate tens of thousands of pounds worth of machinery and has calmly negotiated the sort of staycation traffic that would make a vicar swear.

We’ll never know whether if he’d actually sat his exams, along with the rites of passage such as prom, he would have signed on the dotted line for sixth form. My guess is there’s a fair chance; but the pandemic has cast a cloud of doubt and distrust over that particular pathway.

This particular 2020 GCSE student still wants to go to university, but is convinced the vocational route is the way forward. After two years at college – so long as his grades are decent – he’ll be able to apply for a degree course just like anybody who has done A-levels.

The only difference is the results don’t all rest on one big exam at the end. He’ll know whether he’s got in while the A-level students are waiting and worrying. He watched, just last year, his older sister not knowing if she was going to university until results day. To him, it seems an archaic system and given the shambles of this year it’s hard to disagree.

Of course, there can be no escaping A-levels for certain career choices such as medicine. But should this year’s fiasco make parents and teachers take a long hard look at whether all young adults should be pushed along the academic route?

Back when this correspondent was a girl only the very brightest students stayed on to do A-levels. I did a few eventually, at night classes, but got straight on with joining the local newspaper and training to be a reporter.

Having done some lecturing of degree-level journalism students, I’m unconvinced the modern way is always the best. Is there anything to actually beat being told off for getting the names of the happy couple in a Scarborough Evening News wedding report wrong? Or the strength of character learnt through sitting through several late-night parish council meetings a week?

But perhaps this is straying into the territory of former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who is famous for bragging every year that he did no good in his exams but is a millionaire with a large slice of West Oxfordshire farmland under his belt.

My personal favourite is where he refers to his C and two Us, telling exam candidates not to worry on exam results day with the line: “I’m sitting here deciding which one of my Range Rovers to use today.”

It has been heartbreaking to hear so many young people featured on the news absolutely devastated by their exam results. Is it good for the mental health of our nation’s youth to set so much stall on exams? The way some of them spoke about “uni” it was as if they hadn’t thought about anything else for years.

That getting there was the only value they put on their very existence. Parents and teachers aren’t doing their jobs right if teenagers only think they are worthwhile individuals if they get to university.

It’s indulgent, but the lists of people who didn’t do well in school never fail to raise a smile. There’s businesswoman Deborah Meaden, star of the television show Dragon’s Den. Then there’s Richard Branson and the broadcaster Jon Snow. The list is endless. Must get on. There’s a boilersuit – rather than a school blazer – to get in the washing machine…

Sarah Todd is a former editor of Yorkshire Life magazine. She is a farmer’s daughter, mother and journalist specialising in country life.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor