Fear of failure leaves pupils stressed out says pupiline

Pupiline.net, a youth website run by a 16 year old boy has added its voice to concerns raised in a survey today that pupils are suffering from an overload of testing and exams. The website is running its own exam results stress survey at the moment, in a bid to establish why pupils feel so under pressure.

Pupiline.net editor, Oli Watts, who is just preparing for his GCSE’s, supported the findings in the report, Tested to Destruction, which was commissioned by the Professional Association of Teachers and the Secondary Heads Association. He said: "Speaking to people of my age, I discovered that they all feel totally stressed out, not just by the pressure of sitting exams, but also by the agonising wait for that little brown envelope to drop through the letterbox and the pressure to get the right university place or college course or job.

"What we are trying to find out at pupiline with our survey is where young people feel the pressure comes from. Is it from themselves, parents, teachers, friends? And the initial results seem to show that what bothers young people like me most is the fear of failure."

16-year-old Oli, who runs pupiline.net from offices in Ipswich, Suffolk and is a pupil at the Gilberd School in Colchester, Essex, has developed his website into an interactive electronic magazine, with discussion forums where young people can talk to one another and offer one another tips on how to cope with all sorts of issues, as well as links through to places where they can get professional help and support if they need it."

He’s working on the site over the summer holidays with a team of other young people to cover all sorts of features both serious and fun to cater for the 11-17 age group.

Oli added: "It’s great that these two teaching unions are drawing attention to the issue, and great to see them asking young people what they really think."

He’s hoping that as many people as possible will fill in the survey at www.pupiline.net with the added incentive of winning some Lush bath products to help them de-stress not dis-tress!

- The Pupiline Team