Those sitting GCSEs deserve a week in Ibiza

Exams are hard and incredibly stressful, as any parent of a 16-year-old child can currently testify seeing as how we're slap bang in the middle of GCSE season.

We barely see daughter #1 and have not done so for around two weeks. She gets up, eats her breakfast, packs her bag for the day and marches off, straight backed, to school to sit her exam and then spends the rest of the day in the library getting ready for the next one.

She’s halfway through and the reaction so far has been mixed. I text her after every exam and the responses so far have been, “Bad”, “Alright”, “Better than expected”, “Really hard”, “It was okay” and “Good”.

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In the past I’ve always been a bit sceptical of holding proms for school leavers because everybody leaves school at some point. But after seeing at close hand the pressure these kids are put under I don’t think a night out at a local hotel is enough to cover it.

I’d say a week in Ibiza with tickets to a different superclub every night would be a much fairer reward. What do you reckon?

Daughter #1 has her motives for keeping out of our house for as long as possible, the main one being that our daft adolescent puppy Walter can’t pester her when she’s in the library but if she stayed at home to revise he’d be going through his well worn routine to get her attention.

First there’s the whinnying, then there’s the stealing of kitchen utensils (his favourite’s the incredibly sharp carving knife that he trots around with in his mouth like a pirate) followed by protest wees and then knocking things over and ripping them to shreds.

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And it’s not like he’s ever left on his own for any length of time. On the days work starts a bit earlier at noon we pay a friend to babysit him and take him out for walks – and that’s after I’ve run his legs off at Williamson Park or the beach at Heysham in the morning so he’s fast asleep for the short time he’s home alone.

If there was such a thing as a Dog Lottery, Walter would be a jackpot winner and get begging letters from other dogs. He’s currently curled up on the sofa having his 8.30-9am nap before his first walk. Bless him.

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