Children's Express reporters David and Seamus are getting stressed out ahead of summer examinations. This week they decided to find out just where the pressure is coming from!
As we sit here we're struggling to keep our eyes open. Why I hear you say? Its not because we were out to the early hours of the morning, no on the contrary we were trying to meet our coursework deadlines and revise for looming examinations.
The older generations tell us that our school days are the best of our life but we are seriously starting to doubt that.
As GCSE and Key Stage 3 students we have to do many written examinations, not to mention oral examinations, performance examinations and coursework, over 2 years. And it's not just us. As we look around our fellow classmates and colleagues at Children's Express, they are all the same. We began to wonder why young people are being put under so much pressure at this age in matters that will affect the rest of our lives.
Colleen O'Neill is an A level student at St Cecilia's College in Derry. She feels the stress of exams can effect you in many different ways. "It puts a lot of pressure on friendships, as you can't get to see friends and some people cant understand that. School does put on revision classes for us and they gave us books on how to deal with stress. A Levels and GSCE's are important but I don't think other exams should be taken too seriously."
Clare McCartney is a GSCE student from Claudy High School. She also believes there is just too much stress being put on young people. "A lot of us are finding it difficult to sleep and a lot of us are getting really stressed out because some of us have two exams a day and it gets very stressful. I think exams are really important but I think too much stress is put on young people and exams could be spaced out better."
Dr Joe McEvoy is a doctor at the Bayview Medical clinic in Londonderry. As Dr McEvoy explains, young people can often feel overwhelmed by stress. "You have so much going on in your life and your schoolwork it becomes unhealthy and you can become unhealthy with it, unless you can find a way of dealing with it."
He also explains there are many other reasons why stress affects young people more. "You have to deal with more than exams as a young person or adolescent. You are going through personal changes, your role within your family is changing, how you deal with friends is changing and however good or bad change can cause stress."
He also believes it is important for young people to look for advice. "The more you are prepared for something like stress, the more you realise that it is going to be ever present, but not going to be overwhelming. To state the obvious if you leave everything to the last minute at school you will only create stress rather than managing your study all year around."
He believes schools don't always help students deal with stress in the best way however. "I think sometimes in school you will get days where every teacher is giving you huge amounts of homework and wanting projects in at the same time and that is very hard to avoid when you are doing 10 subjects, so I am sure with a bit of planning that sort of thing could be avoided."
Martin Meenan is a teacher at St Columb's College in Londonderry. He feels the entire blame does not fall on the schools, more the school system. "I think the way the system is set up at the moment, so much assessment going on, so much testing, schools being compared one against the other purely on examination results, schools are as much a victim of the pressures that cause stress as the students are, but students will not always see that either."
With exams a permanent fixture of school life, stress has become the "norm" and in this ultra competitive world if you're not under stress, you're labelled as not working hard enough. A small amount of stress can help us, but as young people we all agree that it can become too much to cope with and the system needs to be revised!
About the team
This story was produced by David Hunter, 15, and Seamus McDermott, 17. It was published by Reach for the Sky website.
