GCSEs are getting easier.

According to the Daily Hatemail.

I know, I know... what on Earth was I doing reading that trash? I accidentally stumbled upon it by following a (seemingly harmless) link from Google. Seriously, I need to hone my surfing skills. It's taken me a week to write the blog because it's taken me that long to cool my blood down and to glue my objet d'art back together.

Well, what proof does the Hatemail provide? a) That a 5 year old took GCSE maths and passed with a C grade; b) that a 9 year old took the same GCSE and passed with an A*; and c) that the pass rates for A*-C grades are getting better, year on year.

Well, the youngsters clearly passed as they were well-coached geniuses (or is that geniii?) who had the luxury of taking just one GCSE. If you coached me for a year on any one subject, I'm sure I could pass. Both children said that they felt that maths was a game - clearly it came naturally to them and they will be building a space station on the moon before I'm a head teacher.

As for the rising GCSE outcomes - well, of course that means the exams are getting easier. Nothing else could surely account for the improvements. Like, for instance, improved teaching? Or the fact that we now test these children at every interval with SATs and officially reported teacher assessments? Or the fact that teachers are expected to monitor the slightest alteration in a child's progress and intervene the second anything declines? Or the examinations culture in which we live, where teachers and students fear failure and strive to achieve the golden C grade (or higher) at all costs. Giving up breaks, before school, after school, weekends and holidays to cram in additional revision sessions. Or the fact that us teachers are governed to ensure that students 'pass' from the moment they arrive in our secondary school classrooms?

For goodness' sake.

You've seen the cartoons, when the money grabbing character looks at an object/animal/item/victim and above each one is a dollar sign and its value? Well, when I look at a class of 30 Year 7 children (all shiny and new and over-keen to impress me to the point of irritation), I see little GCSE targets floating above their heads. There's a C grade. There's an A grade. There's an E grade. There's an A* (no pressure then).

I'm not lying. We are given their GCSE target grades - that's the grade they're expected to achieve at the end of their 5 year journey with us - within the first term of entering the school. Ta da. That child's future is then set in stone. The precious target grade will dictate his/her class set (and as a result, his/her friendship group); it will also dictate the amount of money and resources lavished upon the child.

Every child targeted a C or above should achieve their target because, come Year 11, they will have received 5 years' worth of investment. Some of those with D grade targets will have had the same treatment - convert those Ds to Cs and points means prizes.

In 1960, Armin Hary of West Germany completed the 100m race in exactly 10.0 seconds, creating a new World Record. In 2008, Usain Bolt (Jamaica) completed the race in just 9.72 seconds. I haven't heard anyone complaining that the race must have been shorter; it's just accepted that the athletes are faster and that they have better knowledge and technology at their fingertips (nutritionists, specialist trainers etc.) The 100m race isn't easier: the athletes are better.

Students have more information and technology at their fingertips. They have target driven teachers, who consider what they do to be a profession (gone are the days of the adage, those who can't...) Add to that a growing fear of the current economic situation (understood and translated by sixteen year olds as the dwindling number of places at university and opportunities for jobs) and you have a generation of students who are motivated - positively or negatively - to work hard and do well.

GCSEs are not getting easier but some aspects of the game have changed.

That sicky feeling. Again.

Remember being 16? Remember taking your GCSEs (or O Levels for those of you who are a little riper than others)? Remember that feeling you got the night before your results?

Sicky. Panicky. Fidgety.

There are always the Hermione Grangers... they work their butts off, any moment not revising is a moment wasted. They spend the night before results day fretting that they won't get the best grades (anything below an A* is a fail). And, of course, they get the best grades.

Then there are the Harry Potters... they have moments of guilt which result in short bursts of focus and revision. Emphasis on short - they're easily distracted. They spend the night before results day knowing that they won't get the best grades but hoping they've done enough to make people proud. Then they walk out with A*s anyway because they always get the luck - and annoy...

...the Neville Longbottoms... who spend their whole time putting in 110% (they wouldn't know what tautology was, Hermione would) to their work. They spend the night before results day having nightmares about what their family will think if they don't do exceptionally well. And then, of course, they don't. They get average results because they didn't get to be Harry.

And then there are the Ron Weasleys... high hopes without the motivation to go with it. Champagne dreams with a lemonade work ethic. Revision - what's that? They spend the night before results day forgetting that the next day is results day.

And then you have the saddos, like me. Apparently, going through this trauma once wasn't enough. Oh no. I have chosen a career that means I'll go through it year after year after year. Hoping that my cohort has made its target. Hoping that my individual classes have exceeded their predictions. Hoping that my mentees have heeded our sessions and got the grades they need. It feels like I'm trapped in a ground hog day with ten caffeine patches. Ten on each arm.

As a teacher, I would like to think that I'm Hermione but I couldn't say until tomorrow's results are in. Perhaps, I'll turn out to be a Neville Longbottom. Oh Hufflepuff, here come the palpitations again.

And I'm not telling you if I was Hermione, Harry, Neville or Ron as a student.

Pyjamas. Sofa. TV.

Nothing, on a Friday evening, can prevent me from partaking in these three delights, in the order described above. I say Friday evening, to be honest, Stage One (out-of-work-clothes-and-into-my-paint-splattered-garishly-patterned-decade-old-PJs) is achieved no later than 4:52 p.m.

The time is crucial. Stage Two – domination of the 6 foot sofa – must be accomplished by 5:00 p.m. It takes eight minutes to pull off the pussies (now, now, purely for alliterative effect), who cling to the cushions like Velcro; to decamp the dog, who pretends to sleep – eyes open and snoring like a pot-bellied middle-aged bachelor; and, finally, to persuade my perfect partner to perch on our crappy bean bag so I can stretch out. 5:00 p.m. is always my coronation time – I’m talking monarch of the sofa, not ITV soap opera.

Which brings me, seamlessly, onto Stage Three: TV at 5:00 p.m. The holy grail. My Mecca. The highlight of my tedious week.

It’s a brief reign. By 5:11 p.m., I’m asleep and when I wake up (ridiculous o'clock on Saturday morning) my ‘subjects’ have somehow dethroned me. I’ve been crowbarred onto the crappy bean bag. Again.

Until next Friday...

School's out for summer...

...only it seems that summer has failed to answer "Here!" for the register. Again. Bloody rain, bloody wind, bloody black clouds.

Holidays seem to polarise the teacher and the non-teacher. The non-teacher blindly believes that teachers get 13 weeks of leave a year, which translates to 91 days off - not including bank holidays or weekends. Moreover, it's a widely held idea (perpetuated by the BBC's Waterloo Road and C4's Teachers) that teachers stroll in at 9 a.m. and sprint out at 3.00 p.m. every day. A full time salary on part time hours: utopia.

Teachers, of course, know better. But there's little point in arguing with the hairdressers and cabbies of this world ("You're a teacher, are y', love? Nice holidays you lot get") about each of the hurdles you've jumped or stumbled over in order to enter the profession. Hurdle one: the undergraduate degree. Hurdle two: the postgraduate certificate. Hurdle three: the debts which make a life of crime seem like a reasonable solution. Hurdle four: the competitive job market. I know - it sounds like lots of other real jobs; that is my point.

And as for the utopian hours, I am sure there are some teachers who keep the same working hours as a Year 11 boy - in on the first bell, out on the last bell , no working in the evenings or weekends. In fact, these are the teachers who are hidden away in lockers, store cupboards or on school trips with the vocational classes when the big O comes knocking. The majority of teachers start work at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m.; they forgo breaks because there simply isn't time to eat, drink or pee when they have playground duty / detentions / meetings (delete as applicable); they spend their evenings planning lessons - trying to reinvent and adapt the wheel so that they can trick their students into not realising it is a wheel at all or, very often, into not realising it's the same wheel they've been studying for the last 6 weeks; and they work one day at the weekend - in between the shopping, cleaning and obligatory family commitments - to keep up with their marking (marking which is like baby puke; it just keeps coming and coming and you can't see where from or how so much could possibly be generated by something so small).

And if the 60 hour weeks (more like 110 hours a week in exam season) aren't draining enough, teachers then work through their holidays.

• October half term: time to catch up on coursework marking and to plan for the half term ahead.
• Christmas holiday: 12 days entertaining family, decorating the house, undecorating the house, buying presents, wrapping presents, delivering presents, shopping, cooking and cleaning with 2 days to work flat out on all the marking, planning and report writing which has piled up behind the Christmas tree.
• February half term: assessment marking and planning ahead.
• Easter holiday: 2 weeks to finish all coursework folders and exam cover sheets in preparation for moderation (in English, each child has 5 pieces of coursework and 4 forms to complete - I teach 60 children). GCSE revision classes will also take place in this holiday - just because jeans are permissible doesn't mean it isn't work.
• June half term: middle of exam season, so it's full of revision sessions and marking and planning ahead and writing reports.
  

So, the rub of the matter is that teachers all know that the only true holiday we get is the summer holidays. 30 days of wasp and bug and flying ant attacks. 30 days of crippling, satanic, elitist travel and accommodation costs. And 30 days of "back to school" adverts.