Five ways to celebrate the end of your residential IGCSE exams

Studying for any exam is tough enough but the IGCSE is widely recognised as one of the most rigorous methods of assessing the knowledge and understanding of 15-16 year olds that there is. This means it requires some serious revision.

Many schools with excellent academic reputations, particularly independent international schools, have already abandoned traditional GCSEs in favour of IGCSE exams. It is no surprise that the government’s recent response to growing criticism that GCSEs have become ‘too easy’ was to announce it will now pursue a model similar to the IGCSE.

If the IGCSE exam is tough it follows that students who have studied at a school offering residential IGCSE exams will have studied hard and therefore will know best how to celebrate when the stress and pressure is finished.

Former students of Alexander International School (www.alexandersschool.com) here offer the five best ways to celebrate the end of your exams.

1. Mementoes

Studying an IGCSE as a residential student is an intense experience but you make strong bonds with your peers and find friends for life. Several students commissioned or made mementoes to commemorate the end of their exams. These ranged from scrapbooks of collected signatures and witty aphorisms to photo collages of friends collated from everyone’s end of term pictures.

Other celebratory mementoes included specially printed t-shirts, group photos of everyone impersonating someone else in the gang and custom cups printed with ‘mug shots’ of classmates.

2. Experience days

A special day out with friends helps you spend time together while getting those thrills that revision has taken away from you. Theme parks provide plenty of adrenaline rushes and great opportunities to have a laugh at each other’s terrified looks and white knuckles.

Group bungee jumps are another option for a sharp rush of excitement, whereas overnight camping and makeover sessions or pamper days offer a more calming way to burn off that stress.

3. Nights out

Themed nights out were also popular, with a dress to impress code strictly adhered to and a stretch limo delivering friends to their favourite Italian restaurant for a slap-up celebratory meal and a chance to feel special. Others traded their trainers for bowling shoes and took out their pent up aggression and stress on those poor white skittles waiting at the end of the lane.

4. Nights in

Another way to celebrate was to have a night in with a difference. Three DVDs were chosen for a marathon movie session and everyone agreed to dress as a character from one of them before arriving to enjoy a night of popcorn, pizza and pals.

5. Festivals

How fortunate that the end of exams coincides with the start of music festival time in the UK. For all those music fans out there looking for a real celebration what could be better than checking out your favourite bands, camping in a field and enjoying the sun?

Of course the British weather may not always play ball, but you will cherish those snaps of you and your classmates in mud splattered wellies forever.

Resource box

IGCSEs
Find out more about IGCSEs.

Crazy days out

Choose from hundreds of wild day experiences to celebrate finishing your exams.

Personalised mementoes

Make the celebration memorable with these personalised gifts.