Small School A Level Exam Rant

I really do love my school, honest. It's the little things they do that annoy me so much!

As normal, all the school from yr 11 up has been on study leave for the last two/three weeks, and as always, I was expecting our exams to be in either the main hall, or the other hall. Well, no, not this year it would seem.

For some reason, in their infinite wisdom they've decided to do the mock GCSEs for year 10s this week and next week, so A level and AS exams are being moved to different rooms - Language rooms where the desks fold out as computers and worst of all, the dark and tiny drama studio. Not being funny, you can only fit about 15 desks in there anyway, and it's a fire risk because you can't space them out enough to have wide isles that people can get through in a hurry.

My question is why have they decided to add more students taking exams into what is, every year, an already stressful and cramped situation

All of my exams so far have been in the hall along with a load of other exams from different years. Most of the others have ended before ours, so we are told by the invigilators to stop writing whilst they send everyone out of the hall, which breaks your momentum. I would rather they put us in a small room on our own than have this system.

Also, is it just me or are invigilators purposefully annoying? In the English exam today one woman clumsily kicked my pencilcase, which was on the floor, and then proceeded to bend down to pick it up waving her backside directly in my face. I can't concentrate on writing about the clever intricacies of Hamlet's figurative dialogue with that thing confronting me.

Could you imagine marrying an invigilator, they'd have a habit of peering at you constantly whilst eating your crunchy nut cornflakes, timing the length of your showers and urging you to do everything "in silence", even if you're cutting the hedge with a chainsaw. Control freaks.

Another thing that bugs me about exams is the way they whisk your paper away as soon as the time is up, leaving you with no chance to read or reflect on what you have written, even if you can't change it. Also, I would question the wisdom of having two clocks in the hall reading two different times and writing the official start and end times on the board in size 2 font, requiring a telescope to read it.

Also, the chief examiner at my college has a large, protruding chin which I have mild obsession with; every time I settle down to begin a paper I can't get the damn thing out of my head: "In this extract, Shakespeare uses chin to show Hamlet's chin towards his mother chin." etc. I'm pretty sure I subconsciously slipped a chin during my General Studies paper. It probably wouldn't have damaged my marks on that one to be fair.

All of my exams so far have been in the hall along with a load of other exams from different years. Most of the others have ended before ours, so we are told by the invigilators to stop writing whilst they send everyone out of the hall, which breaks your momentum. I would rather they put us in a small room on our own than have this system.

Also, is it just me or are invigilators purposefully annoying? In the English exam today one woman clumsily kicked my pencilcase, which was on the floor, and then proceeded to bend down to pick it up waving her backside directly in my face. I can't concentrate on writing about the clever intricacies of Hamlet's figurative dialogue with that thing confronting me.

Could you imagine marrying an invigilator, they'd have a habit of peering at you constantly whilst eating your crunchy nut cornflakes, timing the length of your showers and urging you to do everything "in silence", even if you're cutting the hedge with a chainsaw. Control freaks.

Another thing that bugs me about exams is the way they whisk your paper away as soon as the time is up, leaving you with no chance to read or reflect on what you have written, even if you can't change it. Also, I would question the wisdom of having two clocks in the hall reading two different times and writing the official start and end times on the board in size 2 font, requiring a telescope to read it.

Also, the chief examiner at my college has a large, protruding chin which I have mild obsession with; every time I settle down to begin a paper I can't get the damn thing out of my head: "In this extract, Shakespeare uses chin to show Hamlet's chin towards his mother chin." etc. I'm pretty sure I subconsciously slipped a chin during my General Studies paper. It probably wouldn't have damaged my marks on that one to be fair.

ETA - Emma, this is the first year I've heard of them doing it. I had year 10s doing mock chemistry in my classics exam, I saw several mobile phones being taken out!

We have an invigilator who always has to say the '10 minutes remaining' thing she cuts the others off if they try and say it, and really relishes doing it, its really annoying cos everytime she does and looks so pleased with herself you cant help but laugh even if its the point in the exam where you should be concentrating the most.

I actually saw that woman when I was working in a shop that weekend, 'accidently' nearly charged her £440 for a newspaper and chocolate bar.