Page 92 - Herioter 2020
P. 92
‘It is a measure of the gravity of the
challenge that we now face, that I must
today announce the exams will not go
ahead this year.’
And there it is.
Let’s be honest, no one cares about the
rest of your speech now, Mr Swinney.
Everyone just needs to figure out this
mess.
Of course, this was something we
had been somewhat aware of as a
possibility, but be honest, no one
thought it would ever become a reality,
did they?
My prelims: were they good enough?
Can I still get my grades?
Your Future is hadn’t come even ten minutes into Mr Can I still get to uni?
Swinney’s speech.
Can I still do what I wanted to do?
Cancelled Okay. We get it. You want to make sure Worse still, even our teachers are at a
vulnerable children are protected, but
loss.
the vast majority of us quite frankly
Sitting in my English classroom on No one knows what we’re going to do
Thursday, the tension was palpable; don’t care at the moment! now.
you could have cut it with a knife; Just move on with it! And no one knows how this will change
everything was coming to a head; any And then at the ten-minute mark, there our lives.
number of other clichés about tension, was a massive shift in tone. Now that At twelve minutes past two on Thursday
just chuck them all in. Things were Swinney finally started talking about the the nineteenth of March 2020, we lost
heated and on edge. exams, he’s started talking about their our exams.
All this tension as we were watching the history. That’s never a good sign. It felt
chambers of the Scottish Parliament almost like a eulogy and at this point we At twelve minutes past two on Thursday
of all things. With the recent outbreak all knew what was coming… the nineteenth of March 2020, we lost
of COVID-19, the Scottish Education our futures.
Secretary, John Swinney, was due to Tristan Jacquel (S5)
make an announcement regarding
exams. Author’s note: This piece is a largely
Our English teacher had the stream up emotional response to the cancellation
for us as the minutes ticked by… of exams, written shortly after the
One minute late… announcement. It was also written
before the clarifications to how
Two minutes late…
qualifications would be awarded
The speech had finally begun.
were made. As such, it can be rather
And yet the answers we all wanted bleak!
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