Day 1 in the Big GCSE House Thursday 21st August……..The big day……… Did you pass?………. Did you fail?…………..

Do you feel like you have just been nominated for eviction? Do you think everyone in the world is watching you, Mum, Dad, Gran, Auntie Ethel all saying really helpful things like "I am sure you have got 12 A*'s, but don't feel under any pressure!"

Everyone else in this 'Big GCSE House' feels just like you and they are wandering around pretending that they aren't bothered. It's normal to feel the panic or to flip out! The exams are over now, you did your best and there is nothing you can do about your results. What you can do is be prepared for the choices you need to make after you've got them.

Could all GCSE Students please come to the Diary Room.

Once you've taken those scary steps to find out your results, you immediately have options that you can consider.

Remember the article "Keeping It Real at 16+"? This is a great article that looks at your options at 16+. These options will be even more important to you if you didn't get the results you were expecting.

Please give your reasons for your nomination!

Don't feel like you're on the 'hot seat'. You must not feel pressured into making a decision about your future for the benefit of everyone else. You might have had a shock (good or bad) or you could have got what you expected. This decision will be very important to your future and it is important that you think very carefully about your reasons and don't get caught up in how you feel when you first get your results.

You know that your options include:

You still have the chance to change your mind. This doesn't always mean those people who got lower results than they expected. You might have got much higher results and now feel that you might like to think about other options that you had dismissed.

Big Brother will get back to you!

Basically, you will probably need some time out from the 'Big GCSE House'! So go and talk to the people who can help you. It doesn't do you any harm to talk over the decisions that you have made. This helps you to make sure that you are doing things for the right reasons or that you haven't missed any opportunities. You might feel that you have no idea what to do and need someone to go through all the options with you. So in your case, instead of going to talk to Big Brother, go and talk to your Careers / Connexions Adviser. Or you could think of it as instead of going to the diary room, go and visit your careers / connexions centre or library!

You have 10 seconds to leave the Big GCSE House!

Once you have taken the time to get yourself sorted, you can go out and face the world. No matter what the results, you have still achieved a lot by going through the process and making positive decisions about your future. If you did really well…then congratulations! If you didn't do as well as expected…then don't give up and don't let it stop you from doing what you want to do! Keep trying and choose the options that are best for you!

Good Luck

Jennie Glitherow
Connexions Lincolnshire & Rutland

At school or college? Look out for Jennie's future articles which we'll have here for the first Monday of each month, and which we'll link to the best sites we can find on the Web. Why not bookmark us now?

To get back to this page to use the links on it - enter http://www.careers-gateway.co.uk/mainpage.htm and click on Magazine then GCSE Results - Big Brother Style.

copyright © Careersoft 2003 - First published August 2001. Last updated February 2003