The stress of school

Dealing with the stress of the school education system, in whatever country, is different for each person. In some cases, the person is not able to deal with what they have to do and end up too physically and emotionally drained to finish school and end up failing school in the end. For others they can push and push until they break down at the end and barely recover but still manage to scrape the grades they need to get.


I joined the secondary school that my sisters had gone to, and they had great reputations that I was told I needed to live up to. In the first two years of this education system, years 7 and 8 when I was 11-13, I did fine, getting good grades- for the most part. At the start of year 9 we had made our own choices regarding the lessons that we took, and I had regretted my options. They were too stressful and extra work was catching up with me and it eventually got to the point where I stopped doing work all together and my grades plummeted drastically. Wishing two months, they were back up to the normal standards and I believed that that was over for the long run. My grades continued to fluctuate in different lessons across the next year, bringing us to just before the Christmas holidays, soon after I had started the journey that was my GCSEs. the workload I have gotten is higher than ever, and the strain on my mental health is larger than it had ever been. I've missed days at a time to avoid deadlines and the stress of the school education system. The amount of homework received this year has left our time after school being filled up with more of the stress we experience of school, instead of being able to calm down after a hard day we were all forced to do more work than we had the time to do. This would eventually build up to a lack of sleep, and most people who I know have had breakdowns at school because they were unable to deal with what has happened. This isn't helped by the fact that we all procrastinate our things, which is what many people do each day. Many people miss school because they are too sleep deprived or couldn't handle the school system. 


To help with our school problems people have planned times to do homework or dropped out of after school clubs. To avoid the stress of school as much as you can, especially when you are doing your GCSEs or A-Levels, you can improve your organisation skill to avoid putting more pressure on yourself in the end. Also, when it's only absolutely necessary, take a mental health day to have a day in which you can relax and chill out without the major stress and work required whilst at school. Set achievable goals, only you know about. This allows you to focus directly on something rather than filling your mind with everything at once. Furthermore, doing more recreational activities may boost your own morale and make you forget about the stress of school.


Good luck with school and I hope you all do well on any mocks or GCSEs/A-levels you have this year!

​Elizabeth