Did your grades at school matter to your life now?

With a huge rise in students seeking counselling over stress about exam results, it’s good to ask those who have gone through this (a long time ago) and ask, did your grades really matter to where you are now in life?

Childline received 20% more counselling calls this year about exam results according to NSPCC-run helpline with many young adolescents worried about disappointing their parents, and others struggling with a fear of failure and the general pressures linked to academic achievement.

Peter Wanless,  chief executive of the NSPCC, says “It’s important to remember there is life beyond exam results. Disappointing grades are not the end of the world, even if it doesn’t feel that way at the time.”

But this perspective is seldom present when faced with University choices, career decisions and placing yourself on a path that leads to your future. But for so many people, their grades and their academic or non-academic routes had very little to do with their lives now.

Did your grades matter to where you are now?

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