Well

He failed French as he had already assured me had done, and he passed the others, though frankly not with much distinction. He is happy with them and he can go on to do A Level. I have managed to refrain from uttering the words "If only you had put in a bit of effort." That in its self was a bit of an effort for me.

For Joe who asked, in England kids take GSCE's at the end of their last year of compulsory education. Then if they go on to our sixth forms they do A/S Levels in the first year, and A Levels at the end of the second. I actually think it is awful that tehy have exam pressure in the first year of their sixth form. 'In my day' we didn't do A/S Level and the Lower Sixth was fun. Plus all these exams are bloody awful for me. Last year D did exams, this year they both did, next year they both will, the year after that J will, then I get one year's respite until H starts her three years of exams. Think of the parents I say!

If it's Thursday it must be results day

For the second week running I have woken up with a strong sense of foreboding.

Last week D got his A/S Level results. If I tell you that his father was planning to take him down the job centre last Thursday afternoon it may be noted hopes were not high.

In the event the best I can say about them is that they weren't as bad as feared and he will be going back to school, but not to do any more maths. He should never have been doing maths A Level in the first place, but that was the result of 5 years not working as hard as he should have done, and although he ended up with 10 GSCE's in B and C grades, his A Level options were narrowed as he hadn't excelled in anything. Basically one of his B grades was in Maths and so he went for that and failed quite spectacularly. He is still on to get the grades he needs to go to the colleges he is interested in, but he really does have to pull his finger right out to do it.

Of course, everyone else's kids did brilliantly last week, and I have spent much time producing my 'sincere congratulations' responses. It reminded me of when D was a toddler and flatly refusing to learn to talk having worked out that all he had to do to get results was point to what he wanted and his devoted mum would provide. Meanwhile, every other child of comparable age appeared to be fluent in five different languages. And he was the last one to walk. Always was a lazy sod.

It didn't help either that we were subjected on TV and radio to the annual 'record results achieved at A Level' news. Not in this household they weren't! By contrast this morning there seems to be some kind of debate going on about 'How is it 40% of kids are leaving school at 16 without 5 good GSCE's?' I really should turn that radio off.

I kind of hoped that J, seeing D's GSCE results, would work really hard this past year to make sure he didn't end up in the same position. However........

J announced last night he would go into school to get the results about 11. ELEVEN????!!!! Because he doesn't want to get up in what in teenage speak is 'early'. Never mind how his poor mother will be suffering in the meantime. If I know what we are up against I can deal with it....it's the not knowing I find so difficult.


It is going to be a long day.