The End of Exams - by Sammy Wright (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

What is school for? In theory, it equips young people to become independent and productive, to get jobs and forge lives, perhaps to be 'good citizens'. In reality, it means one thing: exams. By focussing on the grades pupils get in neatly siloed, academic subjects, we end up ranking them and our schools into winners and losers. Some pupils are set on a trajectory to university - the rest are left ill-equipped for the world they actually face. Meanwhile, the 'good' schools become middle-class enclaves and the most disadvantaged lose out. Drawing on his twenty years as a teacher, hundreds of interviews and his experience on the UK Government's Social Mobility Commission, Sammy Wright shows that schools are - and should be - so much more than this. Filled with funny, tender encounters and an unflinching focus on the profound challenges of daily life for both teachers and pupils, his book argues that we need urgently to think of school differently: as something more like a home than a factory, a community hub rather than a boot-camp or testing ground. Exams and grades are necessary, but they are not what equip children for adulthood, and at the moment they are having the very opposite effect. Written with a novelist's flair, a polemicist's urgency and ending with a series of practical recommendations for change, this hugely entertaining state-of-the-nation book interrogates one of our most beloved and misunderstood institutions and shows us a better way.

Review Quotes

An essential read - as entertaining as it is insightful - for anyone who cares about the way we treat young people . . . This book is a pleasure to read and its strength is that it is not . . . an enraged, politicised polemic. It is a considered and nuanced . . . diagnosis, looking at education from every possible angle . . . Exam Nation wears its sometimes disturbing findings lightly and mixes in healthy doses of self-awareness and black humour throughout . . . brilliant--Viv Groskop, Observer

A deeply absorbing book that should be read by anyone who wants to understand how our current system really works -- or rather, about the many ways in which it doesn't . . . Wright's most powerful argument is that as long we have our current system in place we are simply wasting the potential of the long school years -- and our nation's young . . . Wright deserves the highest marks for giving us deep insight into his considerable experience in the classroom and elaborating on all these complex themes with subtlety and a keen intelligence--Financial Times

Well-researched, compelling and thought-provoking . . . funny and self-interrogating . . . such a compelling read, no matter your outlook on our educational system . . . it will force any reader interested in education, with whatever their prejudices, to think about the experience of school, what it is for and who it is serving. And how, perhaps, we might make it better--Lucy Denyer, Telegraph

Persuasive . . . Really this is a book about inequality and fairness . . . refreshingly unsentimental. He is clearly a superb teacher himself . . . Wright gives a series of good, quick and easy-to-follow guides to government education policy . . . His main point is this: schools are only part of a student's life. They can make a big difference, but there's a limit to how much they can mitigate the problems caused by entrenched poverty. This is not a call to return to the 'soft bigotry of low expectations', just a polite request to engage with reality--Sam Freedman, Literary Review

A thoughtful and considered analysis of our education system that asks searching questions about what school is for . . . with sympathy and intelligence. He makes a series of recommendations for improvement . . . most of which are eminently desirable--Michael Gove, The Times, *Book of the Week*

No book in recent years has made quite the same impact on the education sector as this extraordinary volume. It is going to be quoted for generations to come... a brilliant read from start to finish--Church Times

The timing of Sammy Wright's book couldn't be better . . . [this] should be a good moment for some serious soul-searching about the state of our schools . . . His journey through the history of English education, its relationship to class, and our exam culture, meets that challenge . . . it is rich in analysis of the current problem and in solutions, too--Fiona Millar, Guardian

Exam Nation is compelling and complicated, much like the system it chronicles . . . on reflection, he is right--Pippa Bailey, New Statesman

To write this book, Wright has put in the hard yards. He visited 20 schools over the course of a year and interviewed hundreds of children . . . Wright's talent is to let these voices shine through . . . Wright also has a neat turn of phrase; you can see how he'd be an inspirational English teacher--Daily Mail

A tremendous book, like the best lesson ever - informed, funny, fair - I'd defy any reader not to learn much of value, and not just about school--Richard Beard, author of Sad Little Men

About the Author

Sammy Wright is Deputy Head of a large secondary in Sunderland. He sat on the government's Social Mobility Commission from 2018-21, becoming a key voice in the debates over exam grades during the pandemic. He has taught for twenty years at schools in Oxfordshire, London and the North East, and is also an award-winning writer of fiction, including the Northern Book Prize for his debut novel Fit.