This whole situation feels like death by a thousand cuts. My DS walked away in the first lockdown last year six weeks before he was supposed to take his A levels - he'd completed his course and that was it - job done - all over. My DD stopped going to school as well in that first lockdown and has literally spent a whole year being taught via computer or sporadically in person. To keep going through all this uncertainty has required real strength and will power and now the school is going to test her into submission to give her her final grades. These poor kids, I feel for every single one of them.
Yes, that sums up pretty much how my dd has experienced this last year. It has taken so much effort and energy and willpower to keep going with the online learning, without access to any of the normal fun stuff/social interaction that normally helps her to recharge her batteries, and now she's going into an extended period of high stakes assessment feeling totally depleted, defeated and very close to burnout. I am exhausted just watching her, and I don't know what to do to help.
Some of her friends are past caring - they are usually hard-working, highly motivated kids, but they have just reached a point where they feel they just can't cope with it any more, and they have effectively given up. Others are not eating properly, not sleeping properly, not looking after themselves at all. Some are self harming. And this is amongst my dd's group of friends who are normally the "together" ones. I feel so bad for them all, and honestly wish that they could have just done the GCSE exams as usual. I know that that would have been stressful too, but this prolonged stress over months, where they have felt that every single piece of work will count towards their final grade, followed by high stakes exams in March and more high stakes exams in May...it's just too much.
I don't blame the school for any of this. They are in a nightmare situation where the government seems to be making it up as they go along, and they're just trying to do the best they can for the kids. It's a difficult balance to strike because they need to gather enough sound evidence for the grades to prove that they are robust and reliable (to avoid the claims of mickey mouse grades, which will no doubt be made anyway), and they want to give kids every possible shot at demonstrating what they can do, but the inevitable consequence of that seems to be testing the kids to the extent that many of them will be at breaking point. It's unbelievable that schools are still waiting for guidance from the government on the assessments - the mess last year was somewhat forgivable because the pandemic took all of us by surprise, but it seems to me that there is absolutely no excuse at all for the appalling lack of planning this year. I can only hope that they put better contingencies in place for next year, especially for the current year 12s who have already had one set of public exams messed up.
I'm just counting down the days till the summer now. I'm not really worried about dd's grades. I know that her teachers all really rate her, and she has worked consistently before this period and throughout, so she should get what she deserves. I'm much more worried about the impact on her mental health and that of her friends. Again, I know that the school is doing what it can to try to mitigate this, but there is only so much that they can do, and there is nowhere enough support via CAMHS or whatever for the kids who desperately need it - this just leaves other kids, parents and teachers to try and pick up the pieces.
Sorry, that was a bit of a rant, but 
to all those kids, parents and teachers who are doing the best they can in very challenging circumstances!