It’s that opposite time of the year again. For most people going about their daily lives the longer days and expected sunlight create a natural momentum and a flow of movement. If people are going to exercise at all, this is certainly the time. Just look at the available number of cycling, running and walking events and you’ll see that spring into summer is flex time.

For many students however, the opposite applies. It’s a case of heads down over the laptop, writing out index cards, slurp a warm drink, procrastinate a little, sip a little more, realign the pencils and hunch again back over the laptop.

As an examiner it’s an odd summer for me because for the first time in 6 years I’m not on the cusp of marking any papers at all because this time around; I’m the student!

I’m finishing off a 10 month course in educational assessment and although I do not have to sit exams, I do have a long report to research and write up and from a seasonal perspective; it feels wrong. I wrote an essay over December and January and found it much easier to lock myself away, pull the curtains and do what was required. The winter months feel like a much more appropriate time to spend indoors and think.

I suppose it has to be this way because the academic year runs from September to June (and nobody’s rushing to change that in a hurry) and we in the system have constructed a necessity for assessments, tests and all other Systems Of Summary to come along now, like a pan national swarm of full stops.

I’m not offering any change or amendment, but I am saying to students and parents do remember that teachers, moderators, invigilators and examiners know what you’re going through. We live through it ourselves each year and remember our own time at the sharp end. We are in fact still there because your success it ours. Educators do it for the vocation and the desire to help. If things go wrong the Sunday Mail will be quick to point and blame and quite frankly, even when things go well, they’ll do the same.

Take it from an insider, your teachers are better than ours were. What you learn is useful and of great value and a secret that others may not like to share; there’s no immediate rush. There’s always tomorrow. See a poor result not as a sign that you’re not up to it but that you’re travelling at a slower pace than the system wants, but you’re still travelling. If you can extract some enjoyment from the subject, you can definitely make it and even if you don’t like it that much, with time you can still arrive.