While we are all aware the exam period is a busy time for our children some find it a greater battle than others. Although this is often from a learning perspective, many also struggle to cope emotionally and require support in the home as well as in the classroom.

Research by Samaritans shows that the pressure to achieve high marks is one of the biggest worries for nearly a third (30%) of young people aged 18-24. Exams can bring a whirlwind of emotions from panic and fear of failure to anxiety about the future, and it is important for them to know they are not alone.

Your children may find it hard to approach you as a parent. However, it is important that they know you are there to listen as it can help to talk things through and personal experience can be of great encouragement and comfort.

If your kids come to you for advice and you are worried, then youth mental health expert, Dr Mike Shooter has some useful points to remember: Helping your children to prepare well in advance is key. Draw up a revision plan together, making sure it is broken into manageable chunks. Most importantly, check that they are eating and drinking properly – they will need to keep their energy levels up!

If you want to join in a discussion on how you can help your children, then log onto this live webTV show where Dr Mike Shooter Samaritans’ trustee and student Edel Buggy,who did her A-levels last year will be offering their advice and support.

Dr Mike Shooter and Edel Buggy join us live online at www.studiotalk.tv on Thursday 27th May at 7pm to discuss exam stress

For more information or help and support 24/7 visit www.samaritans.org

Samaritans Webchat

H: Host, Gavin Ramjaun

A: Edel Buggy, ex-student and Samaritans volunteer

B: Jeff Brown, IT specialist

C: Dr Mike Shooter, Samaritans

H: Exams. Whether you’re at school, college or university there’s no way of avoiding them. It’s a testing time for students and parents but don’t worry because help is at hand from our studio guests.

Hello and welcome to Learn, I’m Gavin Ramjaun. Now summer is coming and for many young people that means just one thing, the dreaded exams looming ever closer on the horizon, and it isn’t just stressful for the students busily revising, it affects parents and teachers who all want to help but don’t always know how to go about it as you can see I have with me a very varied panel here to talk about this, but first let’s see what’s coming up on tonight’s show:

Coming up...

Exam stress: What can I do?

Coping with stress

Tips and advice for parents

H: Your questions answered about exam stress. An A level student’s own view of coping with the pressure to achieve top marks. And how can parents and teachers connect with kids at this crucial time? Well to discuss this on my left I have student Edel Buggy who sat A levels just last year and is now a Samaritans volunteer. Next to her we have teacher Jeff Brown who is an IT specialist. Good to know that. And on my right is Dr Mike Shooter from the Samaritans. Welcome to you all. Now don’t forget we’ll be giving out the Samaritans number throughout the show. Now Mike, some recent research carried out by the Samaritans showed that the pressure of exams stress for 18-24 year olds was you know a really, really big worry for them. A third of them said that it was one of their biggest worries. What can – sort of that age group do to sort of combat that?

C: Well for starters I’m surprised only a third of them said it was stressful because quite frankly I think exams are stress for everybody. I’ve known one or two people in my life who’ve said they’re not worried by exams but frankly they were lying, and you can see why. I mean it’s a huge level of expectation on kid’s shoulders these days. Everybody wants to get a good job, everybody wants to go to uni and we’re bombarded with news in the press of how difficult that is. Parents have huge expectations, teachers have huge expectations of the kids, and the exams themselves are a hothouse if you think back to what it was like, rows of desks, papers on the desks, clock ticking away, stern-faced teacher wandering about saying you can now pick up your pencils, now you put your pencils down. Frankly I think anybody would find that stressful and the issue is how you cope with the stress, not the stress being abnormal.

H: Now Edel, I’ll just ask you because you did your A levels last year – what A levels did you do again?

A: RE, art and Spanish

H: And how did you find it juggling that sort of workload and trying to achieve the best marks?

A: Awful, yes. Like even if you revised loads and like you’re up all night and then you went into the exam, and you’re like sometimes your mind would go blank or bad time management and you wouldn't have enough time to answer the last question, so I found it awful

H: And I suppose in terms of the specific fact is you used to revise – what would you say helps you the most?

A: Well I wrote notes out and then I made them smaller and I was like – my mum helped me make music up and that helped me revise better, and then I find revising with friends - because it didn’t feel like revising because well it was kind of a social element. Well sometimes too social

H: So Jeff, how does this effect the teacher in all the stress?

B: It’s – it can be very difficult. Obviously we – we start off as a primarily an academic position to actually try and engage with these students, to get them to learn their subject, to provide them with the knowledge and the skills and as time goes on, we’re now entering a stage where actually we kept going back from that and it’s now the student’s turn to kind of take over, and it’s down to them and so our role turns into much more of a pastoral role in that we actually look for making sure that these students are ok and making sure that they are actually coping with the stress, and Mike said it’s not that you’re going to be stress-free, but it’s actually making sure that it doesn’t escalate into where it becomes a problem and these students start suffering from it. But as a teacher it can be quite difficult it can be quite difficult to see

H: And I guess we shouldn’t really forget the parent’s role in all this, because we’re going to be hearing from a lot of parents throughout this show on how they do cope with their sons’ or daughter’s stress throughout, and how do the parents play a part?

B: Parents are very, very important and I see that personally. Parents are there to support their child through this time, and right the way from if they’re in Year 7 all the way up to sometimes even university as well, you always find the students, give a quick phone call to their mum or dad and ask for their advice which is what you should do. And it is vital that the parents do make sure that the students are ok, that their – obviously that their child is ok. That they are – that they have got their revision schedule, that they have got the – the fridge stocked full of nice food, nice, energetic food for –

H: We’d all want that

B: And support and offer parental support the students

H: That would be the ideal basis, and in your opinion Mike would you say that the parents, in terms of the pressure that they can put in, because you know from my perspective I had a lot of pressure when I was doing my exams and I thought you know it’s quite tough to actually deliver. How would you describe you know the amount of pressure put on to the child?

C: Oh it’s enormous. First of all you understand that. You only have to be a parent to know that you’re doing the exams as well as your kids, but then my advice to them echoing you would be please, if you can possibly do it, keep your anxieties to yourself. If there are two parents then share your anxieties between the two of you. If you’re a single parent, find some friends, find some other single parents in the same boat, cope with your own anxieties by yourself, try very hard not to load it onto your kid’s shoulders because they’ve got enough anxiety without yours too. They know you’re anxious, you don’t have to show them. And the other thing to echo is look after their creature comforts, chocolate biscuits, ice cream, really comfort food, and a structure to their day, a routine within which they can revise and prepare and so for themselves.

H: That would be ideal wouldn’t it?

C :And make sure they get a bit of time off as well, you know? Don’t for heaven’s sake every time you see them say why aren’t you working?

H: Yes

C: You know, because sometimes they need not to be working

H: So Edel did your parents behave like that, were they sort of quite nice to you when you were doing your A levels?

A: No my dad like made a really good point, he just said you know you have to work hard for a short period and then it’ll be over and you’ll have that for the rest of your life, so I kind of just kept that in the back of my head, and then I was quite lucky because I’m a twin and my brother was revising as well, so when he was revising I kind of you know well if he’s doing it, I have to do it, you know that kind of way, so I didn’t get too distracted that way. Facebook was dire

H: Yes. Well let’s go to one of our questions from the viewers, Sharon here. Now she’s asked “when I go to bed” – or she said “when I go to bed I can’t seem to switch off. Do you have any tips?” Now Edel being a former A level student and a current uni student now, how do you get to sleep at night when you’ve got the exams on?

A: Well I actually used to go to bed with my Ipod on and then just listen to music and eventually I’d nod off. And then my mum told me about Horlicks, it’s supposed to help you get to bed and go to sleep easily so basically it worked for me, and then I quite the Ipod thing, I used to wake up and if I was tired I’d drink Red Bull and then get through the exam, the two hour exam and then I’d just go back home and sleep

H: I’ve heard that warm milk is a good indusive for it. So Mike in terms of like you know the mental sort of process that you want to go through when you go to sleep when you wind down, what should you be thinking before?

C: Well first of all don’t work all the way through to the moment you go to sleep, or try and go to sleep because that’s a recipe for sleeplessness. Worry itself of course is going to stop you sleeping and you can easily get into a vicious circle worrying about not sleeping. What am I going to be like the following day? If it’s any help, if you can rid yourself of the psychological assumption that you’re bound to be knackered the following day if you don’t sleep, actually you’re more awake, more alert the following day. The curve goes down very fast after that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to perform badly if you’ve had a sleepless night. Yes by all means do things like listen to your Ipod, watch television and so on. Something to wind down in between work and going to sleep. Don’t do lots of physical exercise just before you go to sleep. People imagine that that’s going to tire you out physically and therefore it’s going to make you sleep. Actually it’s just as likely to gee you up. And just try not to worry about it

H: And Jeff what would your advice be for that?

B: I think I’m – I suffered from this I seem to remember from my exams as well is about the caffeine, the coffee, the teas, and I think it’s a lot of – a lot of it is about cutting out the caffeine if you are sort of using Red Bull etc or caffeine pills or whatever to artificially keep you awake while your revising. That’s going to end up with a sleepless night, it’s going to raise your anxiety and it’s - it’s not going to be good so it’s important to – exercise is as well as Mike said, not just before you go to bed, but some work and exercise regime somewhere in the day to actually help combat that stress

H: Ok

C: Can I add one thing to this but as I would do as a doctor I suppose, don’t reach for sleeping tablets

H: Ok

C: They don’t help, they don’t give you natural sleep and they do give you a hangover the following day and you will perform worse the following day if you’ve got a hangover from something you’ve taken the night before. So I know they sound attractive and you may have a doctor who wants to give you them, but they’re not good

H: And it’s almost like, I mean maybe you might have something to say on this Edel, I mean I personally would think that having a sleeping pill would actually make me more anxious because you feel that you should be going to sleep but you might not be, and then it sort of has a knock-on effect

A: And I also think would I oversleep and miss the exam

C: Quite

H: That’s another good point. Now we’ll go to another question here from Sandra, I want to ask Jeff this one. “How can I make sure my daughter’s teachers are not putting on too much pressure when she’s at school?”

B: It’s a tricky one. I think one of the things is actually talk to your daughter, and actually find out what the teacher’s actually saying. She didn’t say which level she’s at?

H: Let’s assume it’s A levels

B: Ok if it’s A levels, the teacher should have provided a structure of what they’ve covered over the year, she should have a copy of the syllabus, she should have actually had exam papers as well to go through, and really it’s a matter of gauging that she needs to start working into a revision schedule as well and those aspects, and when she does go on revision leave or study leave sorry, then she needs to take over that. Teachers can be guilty of focusing on their subject solely and pushing their subjects and just going on about that, because obviously they have a vested interest in that student doing the best that they can, but it’s down to the student to try and actually manage that. It’s a tricky one but it’s communicating with, with your son or daughter to try and find out what’s actually going on with the teacher, and then trying to put that into perspective and working that into the revision schedule.

H: So Edel did you find that your teachers put a lot of pressure on you when you were studying?

A: Yes. Every – because I did art as well a lot of them, art was my main subject, you know I really liked it, I was always up in the art room and they’d be saying you really shouldn’t be concentrating on that, you should be concentrating on this, and it was just kind of the teachers pulling you all in different directions and you know that sort of way.

H: Well guys thanks very much for your thoughts, that’s the end of part one. Coming up in part two of Learn, we’ll be taking more of your question and hopefully finding some answers out about how students can combat exam stress.

Now welcome back to Learn, and we’re talking exam stress with A level student Edel Buggy, I should say former A level student Edel Buggy, teacher Jeff Brown who is an IT teacher and Mike Shooter from the Samaritans who is the expert in psychological health behind all this stress. So later in the show we’re going to be looking at the important role of parents and teachers in reducing stress, as kids struggle to cope in the run-up to exams. So Mike what are the sort of key signs that I think young people are you know sort of struggling to cope with in terms of exams stress? What are the key signs that we need to look for?

C: Well everybody’s presentation is different of course but in general I think there are physical signs, there are emotional signs and there are social signs. Physically we all know what somebody looks like if they’re tense and nervous and shaky and so on, all the way through to full-blown panic attacks where there’s absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they’re not coping. Emotionally I think most of all people under stress are irritable. You hear parents and teachers say it’s like walking on glass being around with her at the moment because so irritable and so explosive emotionally. It’s a sure sign of tension. And socially of course when people start to withdraw from their friendships and so on, back to their room, spending all their time by themselves then you can be pretty sure that something difficult is going on for them. Those are the sort of signs that you’ll find in almost everybody under stress. There are more serious signs of course, from people at the far end of the spectrum who are really not coping at all, and then we’re talking about drinking and taking drugs and sometimes even self-harm

H: Sure. Now Edel - we’ll talk about you know the sort of issues with self harm in a moment - but Edel did you think that you know when you were doing your exams, did you find that fellow students helped you out in support as well?

A: Oh definitely, yes because we were all in the same boat and we were all like very good at supporting each other and if somebody had found like a good reference on the internet or whatever, they’d have shared that with everyone so I was fortunate in that way

H: Good stuff. Now we’ll go to a question from Keely now, I’ll ask you Jeff. “I’m studying for my GCSEs”. Now those I guess are you could say the sort of first major hurdles I guess in terms of the next achievement in education. I mean some people might argue with that but I’m struggling to juggle so many subjects. What would you advise?”

B: It’s tough when you’re doing 10, 11 GCSEs and you’ve got all this, all again all the teachers, all the revision and everything, and that’s where the importance of actually sitting down and working out your revision schedule is paramount and actually finding out when your exams are and working out your schedule so that you can spend exactly you know a specific amount of time for each subject and trying to get through the material. It’s not easy at all, but it is – having preparing very early on is the key, and it’s actually just going through that and finding out, finding out the material that you’ve covered. I’m a very strong believer in past papers. And so just – and most teachers are, and just try and get as many past papers as you can and work your way through them and you can get the marks schemes as well and just revise from those. But there’s no easy answer I’m afraid, and sometimes you have to buckle down and you just have to work hard. But you can schedule it in, along with rest breaks

H: So Mike, would you say that juggling so many subjects in your head – do you think that sometimes there’s a danger of someone trying to do too much?

C: Absolutely. I mean I think there’s a question for the educationalists here, should anybody be trying to do 10 subjects simultaneously? I had problems with six, and doing 10 would be a nightmare it seems to me. If there’s any way of spreading as many subjects as that out over a period of time, then I would have thought that was absolutely essential. I know what the curriculum’s like, it’s packed, you I know but I think 10’s far too much, and how on earth you would juggle that I just don’t know

H: Well I have to remind everyone out here that this is a program that’s going out in conjunction with the Samaritans about exam worry, and if there is anything that is stressing you out and you do want to get in touch then do ring the number 08457 90 90 90, that’s 08457 90 90 90. So I’ll ask you now Edel, Millie here has a question, her 18 year old daughter insists on revising with loud music in her headphones, now you said you listened to your Ipod when you revised

A: Is her daughter me?

H: I’d love to listen to my Ipod to be honest when I was revising, but they didn’t have them then. “I worry that this is not conducive to learning.” Should she be worrying about that?

A: No because I did that and I did ok so I think it’s – I just think it works for certain people. I find sitting in silence very, very boring but when I had a bit of a beat going, you know I was able to get a bit of a rhythm going and it kind of spurred me on, so no –

H: Would you recommend that?

C: I’d support that, I can’t work in silence.

A: Nor me

C: If it’s silent around me then every tiny little drop of a hairpin disturbs me, you know before I got background music then as Edel said you get into the rhythm of it. People are very different. There will be other people listening to this for whom silence is absolutely essential. The thing is to find what’s best for you, and if you’re a parent don’t automatically assume that what was best for you is best for your kids because it may not be

H: Jeff what would you advise on that? Would you say that music or some other form of – I don’t know – entertainment – could help someone learn?

B: It’s difficult, I’m at the moment in the process of writing my reports and I like to listen to my music so I’m bashing these reports out while I’ve got my headphones on and trying to – and getting them done – but again it is down to the individual and if it helps you and if it works, do it. Yes.

H: Good stuff. So this is a question from Helen – “how do you relax in a way which means you sleep well and you actually stop thinking about all the stress and knowledge?” We touched on this slightly earlier but in terms of relaxing, Edel, how did you relax really to sort of get up the next morning for a few exams?

A: I just called round to my friend’s houses and because they were doing exams as well you know it kind of we would talk about our problems, like what we were finding hard and all that and you know I didn’t go out though which I think was to my credit. But yes just going out in the town or whatever. Small things. And walks. Like me and my friend, we still do it, we have this traditional Tesco walk. She lives at the other side of the town from me, and we used to walk and meet each other and walk to Tesco, get ice cream and walk back. And it was like ten minutes but –

H: Cool. We’ve got a question here from anonymous mum, I’ll ask you this one Jeff. She’s worried about her son, he’s very quiet, finds it difficult to talk to her and his A levels are this year. She doesn’t know whether he’ll be alright. What should she do really, should she leave him alone, how can she approach the issues without sort of stepping on his toes?

B: It’s a tricky one and I can understand the anxiety that she has for her son, but again it’s about being there and being supportive and try talking to him, reassure him, say – don’t say you know what are you doing now, why aren’t you working harder, haven’t you done this already etc, but say is there anything I can do? I’m here to support you, teenage boys like their food, try and keep the fridge stocked with some good food that they can eat, keep their energy levels up to work well and obviously the high sugar stuff and everything like that is probably not a great idea but – and be supportive and do say – offer to help, let me know if there’s anything that I can do to help

C: Can I say I think the psychological issue for me behind that question is this a change in this lad’s behaviour? Is this somebody who was very outward going and socially gregarious and so on beforehand and has now suddenly become quiet and that’s why the parent is worried, because if there is a marked change of behaviour like that, then that might be a sign that things are going seriously wrong. We don’t know from the question but that’s what I would be wanting to ask her if she was in this room

H: What the past behaviour was

C: Yes

H: Now we’ve got another question, might be from the same Sandra. “Is it wrong as a parent to say there are more important things in life? I don’t want to send out mixed messages and I want my kids to work hard, but I also want to see them – that they are not the be all and end all really, exams.” Edel I’ll ask you that one, and we are getting quite a lot of comments and questions in from parents here so it’s quite clearly an issue about you know, how worried should they be about you know the pressure of exams? Do you think it’s the be all and end all?

A: No because I don’t think everybody’s academically minded, you know people like I would like art and then people are more practical and electricians and all, you know so maybe academics wouldn’t be, and even if they don’t do well in their exams they can maybe go get work experience or get skills in other areas that would you know help them in that way

H: Sure. Well that’s just about all we’ve got for part two. Coming up in the final part of the show, some advice and tips on getting the level of support that’s right for you.

Welcome back. There’s still time to submit your questions to our studio guests on dealing with exam stress and we want to hear from you, if you’re a parent whose supporting your child through exams and any advice or tips that you may have of your own experience. So Mike what are the key things that parents can do at this time of the year when their kids have got loads on?

C: Well first of all try and cope with your own anxiety as best as you can. Don’t for heaven’s sake add that to the burden of anxiety that your kids are already struggling with. Look after your children generally. They need comfort at this sort of time. A nice, set routine, lots of comfort food, lots of nice things to do. Try not to import your own experience into theirs and don’t please as they set off for their exam say do your best, do your best, I mean what do you imagine they’re going to do, deliberately not their best? You know. But just try and be there in a supportive way, and not get over anxious yourself. I know there’s a temptation to say look life’s competitive out there, you’ve got to get good grades otherwise you’re not going to get a job, you’re not going to university but there are lots more things to life than that, and you don’t need to push that kind of thing. The kids know that already, they are doing their best and they will do their best

H: Sure. Let’s take a question from Dee – this is to all of you. I’ll start with Edel first – “how can you stop stressing after the exams have happened and you want to wait for the results?” And that I think is a really good question, because you know you get that post-exam anxiety. How do you deal with that?

A: Well last year I had the best summer ever, like I just did everything. I think that’s what got me through the exams because I had things planned in the summer and I was thinking once I get this over I have this – but I did my economics repeat and I actually hated economics so much so my friend also failed and we burnt my notes and it’s probably illegal but I loved it. It was a real release and just like as soon as the exams were over I got all my revision notes and just through them out in the recycling. It was just to get them out of the house, it was kind of like out of sight out of mind and get on

H: Yes sure. What would you say about that one Mike? How would you say get over the post-exam stress?

C: Well the first thing I’d say is the moment you come out of the exam room, don’t for heaven’s sake go to your mates and say what did you ask in, what did you do for question three –

H: I think that’s a common thing

C: Or what did you do for question four – because inevitably you’ll think that they’ve done better than you and they’ll come up with some stuff that you think you don’t remember – often you don’t remember what you’ve actually put and you can kid yourself on that you’ve actually done worse than you have. So don’t do that sharing of – it’s just awful. And I’d agree with Edel, if you can find some way of making a clean break from the exams straight afterwards, go and do something that you really love doing you know, and just do it. Maybe not burn – I can understand burning your notes but you might have to re-sit, you’ll have to write them all out again! But just have that clean break, get away from it all, put it behind you. If you can go on holiday fantastic, but just do something that’s completely different

H: Now Jeff I don’t know if you’ve moderated before in exams, after the exams – what do you sort of hear from pupils who’ve sat their papers? What are the sorts of comments you hear, you know how did you do, what did you answer in that one?

B: A lot of that, we see the girls come out of the hall and they do that classic thing, what did you get for number section 2b sort of thing, and that’s probably the worst thing that you can do, because it raises the anxiety again and it’s, it’s quite a frustrating thing to see, to hear as well, because once the exam’s done, it’s done. That’s it, you should say right that’s it, ticked off, focus now on having a bit of a break and focus now on the next one. And but we do see it, but again I’d just like to say I’ve had, some of my students planning their holiday after their exam for a year now and so they’ve been sat there and thinking what are we going to do after the exams, they’ve been sat there in lessons and thinking right what’s the next stage, what are we going to plan next, what shall we do now? I think that’s a brilliant way of looking forward to the end of the exams

H: To be fair it’s something to sort of get them excited about after it isn’t it. Just a quick reminder about this program, it’s running in conjunction with the Samaritans in terms of exam worry. It’s on your screens at the moment. The number to call if you do have any worries or stresses is 08457 90 90 90, that’s 08457 90 90 90. Now this is a question from Lucy D, I’ll ask Mike this. “If I pull an all-nighter the night before an exam, will this make my performance in the exam slightly, or significantly worse even?”

C: Yes

H: Yes? One word answer

C: Very simple answer. Don’t do it. However much you may be tempted just don’t do it. Don’t do it, save that for afterwards all this stuff we’ve been talking about. Enjoying yourself after the exams. You can let rip then but don’t do it the night before the exam

H: And Jeff, if someone you know has been a bit naughty say and they haven’t revised, they haven’t done anything up until you know a couple of days beforehand and they want to pull two all-nighters just to make sure they’ve covered all the ground, what’s the sort of advice on that, is it a good thing or is it totally the wrong thing to do?

B: It’s still the wrong thing to do. You always hear stories about somebody that did it and they’ve done really well, you don’t know whether that’s just hearsay or stories or anything, but generally it is you need to s tart your revision early. The more that you can do, about 25 minutes and then a bit of a break and then another 25 minutes and a bit of a break, and that just reinforces the learning, increases the knowledge and that will, and that will mean you’ll do better in the exams but the all-nighters still won’t do anything I’m afraid

H: Now I just wanted to sort of ask a bit more of a sort of solemn, serious question here. This exam stress is quite over-burdening for a lot of people. From your experience Edel, did you hear of anyone maybe drinking or self-harming in the run-up to exams?

A: Well yes there would have been people who maybe went out and try to relax would have drank but I don’t know about drugs – smoking, there would have been people who were casual smokers developing chain smoking, you know during the exams, trying to cope. That sort of thing, yes

H: Now Mike I can imagine maybe a lot of university students have got so much on this time of year maybe turning to drinking quite a lot for example or even worse. What would your advice be for anyone whose feeling that anxious?

C: Well it would be far too easy for me to sit on the sofa and say don’t, because they’re not going to follow my advice, but all I would caution you in saying is that drink may make you feel more relaxed initially but actually it will just increase your anxiety. It will wake you up in the early hours of the morning when the nightmares are worse, and in the end it will make things worse. Similarly with drugs. Self-harming’s difficult. Because there are a lot of kids out there for whom self-harm is a way of relieving tension. We shouldn’t get that mixed up with suicidality and so on. It’s actually the routine way unfortunately of reliving their tension. And again I’m not going to say you just have to stop doing that because that’s not going to happen, but to say that there are other ways of sharing the unhappiness, one of which is to ring Samaritans for example, or other helplines or talking to your friends or your parents or a trusted teacher as a way of reliving tension without doing that too much

H: And that leads exactly onto the next question from Philip who says how important is talking and what can you do if you’ve got no one to talk to? So Jeff how would you approach that one?

B: Oh always, always talk, always talk to somebody. If it’s your friends, if you can talk to your parents, if you can talk to your teachers, people are there to help. If you feel there is nowhere to turn to, the Samaritans or other helplines are available for you to talk to people. You should always talk to somebody and it is always about getting things off your chest and sometimes they can be very serious. But always, always talk. Try and find somebody to talk to

H: Just a reminder of that number again it is 08457 90 90 90, that’s 08457 90 90 90 if you’ve got any exam worries about stresses and anything else that might crop up in your head in this period. So Edel what would you say about sort of talking to people then? From your perspective it’s quite fresh in your mind from last year. How did you and your friends cope through talking to each other?

A: It was very good because sometimes if you’re not sure with them, you know kind of you think things are worse than they are, and you say to someone I’m finding it really difficult and they say so am I, kind of - it’s comforting in a way. And no I definitely think talking and you know Samaritans is somewhere you can do that in confidence and you won’t be judged and it won’t be repeated elsewhere or anything and like as a Samaritan I find people ringing up about exam stress say oh I’m so glad to get that off my chest and you know they might have only been on for 20 minutes or something and you might not have said anything, and they’re just like oh thanks for listening and you know – so it’s proven to be very good

H: So do you give out any sort of direct advice when you speak to people who ring up?

A: Oh no Samaritans doesn’t give advice, we’re just a listening service so –

H: Sure. I’ve got a question here from Sally in Gloucester. “How do you deal with a situation when you think a friend isn’t coping?” Jeff I guess you’ve seen peer groups operating in the classroom. How do you sort of monitor that and I guess deal with it?

B: We do occasionally get people coming up and saying I’m really worried about my friend. She’s started becoming much more withdrawn, she’s not being happy and then that’s where the school starts, our first initial thing is to start documenting, so as a school we have to do that by law. So we have to start documenting and then there’s various different cases that we can – procedures that we go through to monitor the child to contact the parents. We do this in a – in quite a – in as subtle a way as possible, just trying to find out whether it’s a blip or whether it’s something more serious. But then we do have procedures that go through. We talk to the child much more on a one-to-one basis. We, as I said we leave the academic side and we become into the pastoral side in the duty of care role, but – and then we take it on to the various different specialists within the school who are trained to help out with those causes

H: So Mike, I guess leading on from that, for someone to sort of get in their head, this is what I need to do, get the task straight in their head, these are how many exams I’ve got. In terms of mentally chunking it, is there a way of keeping themselves healthy and fit to do that and what would you recommend?

C: Well first of all I’d say look after yourself physically. Stress undermines people physically, we all know how physically awful it feels when you’re standing outside the exam room and so on, but if you multiply that by months on end you can very easily see how it can undermine your physical health, so coughs and colds and so on, and more serious diseases are worse in people who are stressed. So look after yourself physically, get plenty of exercise. Get plenty of sleep if you can manage it in the light of the questions we’ve had. Eat properly and get some time off to relax yourself from the work business. Generally looking after yourself physically, emotionally and socially. Going back to the talking business, I think it’s important to say that friends are there because they’re friends and they look after you when you’re in trouble. And some people will tell friends or show friends that they’re in trouble, in the expectation that their friend will get help for them. Some people want it to be absolutely confidential and I think we should stress that if you do pick up the phone to an organisation like the Samaritans they’re not going to be telling people. That is an absolutely confidential line that you can share whatever you’re feeling without fear of that being passed on. I understand of course the different role, the very different role that teachers have in school and so on, and school counsellors have and friends have, if they get caught somewhere in between

H: Sure. Well we’ve got time for about three more of your questions, not long left of the show. I’ll ask you this one Edel. Robert says “looking ahead to when the results come out, how do people cope with the stress if they haven’t done as well as they had hoped?”

A: Talk to your teachers, I’d say and find out what paths you could do, and then try to repeat where you’d went down, because it’s not the end - a lot of people think when you’re in your last years and you’re doing your A levels, that’s your one last chance at it, but you know you can go to tech and you can repeat them or things like that

H: And Jeff how would you say in terms of you know when the results come out and it’s not as good as they wanted, what do they do?

B: It can be very disappointing, there’s always the – you can go down the re-mark route as well. But there may be a moment of realisation. I’ve seen students before suddenly get their A level results and they've worked so, so hard at English, they wanted to go to study English at a good university and they don’t get the result and then it’s really a moment of saying well actually I worked as hard as I can on this subject, and I’m obviously can’t get a high enough level. However maybe one of my other A levels went better than I expected and thought actually maybe that’s a route that I want to, so exams can actually be very useful in highlighting what you could do rather than the – what you actually think you want to do

H: Sure. That question there was from Robert. Now Mike I want to sort of lead on from that really because I guess the results of exams, many people think it leads to what prospects you have in the future, now are exams the be all and end all?

C: No. But isn’t that easy for me to say to people who are right in the middle of exams and think it is? It isn’t, as Edel has said and Jeff has said there are lots of ways of getting round not doing as well as you thought, and there’s an issue for parents in there as well of course. I mean the temptation for parents is to shove their kids up against the wall and say why, why didn’t you do as well as we thought you were going to do, you know? Or on the other hand brushing it under the carpet and saying it’s alright darling it’s fine, you know the world is – whatever, when in fact the kid’s feeling miserable and they know it’s not alright. Finding a happy line somewhere done the middle is difficult. But it’s not the be all and end all. You are a person in your own right, your parents love you, your friends love you. Everybody respects you for what you are, not the grades that you got, and once you start telling that to people then perhaps they can start feeling more positive about themselves, and then they can go back and look at the results and as Jeff says and as Edel says, they can rescue something positive out of it, they can decide to re-sit, or they can decide I’m going to do something completely different with my life that doesn’t depend on exam results

H: Absolutely. Now Edel, when you were doing your exams did you know or come across anyone who didn’t get the results they wanted – how did they cope?

A: Very disappointed. I think you know because you know exams are very big, people that you don’t even know, like I remember I went up to the cafe and people were like how did you do? But yes people that didn’t do well, they talked to their teachers and they just find maybe they wanted to go to a specific university but they didn’t get the grades and they went to another one, and like they’re loving it, so sometimes I think things work out better. Maybe they would have had a miserable time at that uni

H: So we’ve almost run out of time now but before we do go, I’d like to get one bit of exam tip really from you all to cope with the stress, so Mike I’ll start with you – what’s your top tip?

C: My top tip is understand that everybody gets stressed about exams. If you meet a friend who says it’s fine, they’re lying! So don’t keep the stress to yourself, the more you bottle it up the more likely you are to explode. Get it out on the surface and share your stress with other people, then you can start dealing with it

H: Pass the stress on, I like that thought. Jeff what’s your one?

B: It’s not the be all and end all. There is life after exams. They are a way of you know showing what you know and you can make the decision after the exams about what you want to do, so there is life after the exams but be confident in yourself and you’ll see what you can do afterwards

H: And Edel?

A: Yes just that it’s a short period of time, just try to work hard and then it’ll be over and then you’ll have the best summer of your life!

H: Well good advice there from all of you. Thank you very much for watching, that is all we’ve got time for. Thanks again to our guests - Dr Mike Shooter, Jeff Brown and Edel Buggy. We hope you’ve had some useful advice and learnt how to cope with the best sort of methods of exam stress. The phone number again from the Samaritans is 08457 90 90 90, if you’ve got any questions or queries, and the email address again if you just search on whatever search engine you’re using – www.samaritans.org, you can find loads of good advice there whether you’re a parent, student or teacher. Remember if things are getting really hard for you do always call that number. The Samaritans are available 24 hours a day, 08457 90 90 90 again and you can email that address, www.samaritans.org. Thanks very much. Bye for now

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