So, as usual, exam results are better this year than ever before and, as usual, the same old parties have started their cries of ‘they’re getting easier’ so much so that the words ‘broken’ and ‘record’ spring to mind. In fact for as long as I can remember (which admittedly isn’t incredibly long) exams have been ‘getting easier’. With this decrease in difficulty each year (for the past God knows how many years) it seems sensible to presume that one really only need write their name on the paper to pass.

But are the examinations actually getting easier? If Radio One are anything to go by then the answer would be a resounding ‘no’. The station not known for it’s ‘bright ideas’, had the genius plan of getting it’s DJs (well... the less famous ones) to sit a GCSE Maths exam. The results were, of course, dire with one presenter scraping a C grade and the rest failing completely. Though whether this says more about Radio One than the actual examinations seems like another viable debate.

As a nation we can’t admit, after all – it is a rare occurrence, that we may, for once, have got something right. Can we not accept that our education system may actually be working as it should? I know it’s the British way to be modest, but in a week of 18 gold medals (and counting) perhaps it’s time to drop this attitude. From what I understand, and it’s not that long since I was sitting the exams myself, teaching practise has got better, teachers have become better, so therefore the pupils have got better and subsequently gone on to get better exam results… I’m really failing to see the problem. To make an admittedly stupid comparison; if I were to march into Beijing and start moaning that the Olympics were getting easy and that, in fact, all the athletes were lazy – especially the ones who were doing well - I’d be laughed out of the stadium (and presumably into a police van), so why over here are people shouting the youngster’s success down?

But anyway, it’s too late to argue; from next year exams will be made harder. Though when you really mull it over perhaps that’s not such a bad idea… surely for society to progress, once we’ve grasped a certain level of intelligence we have to push ourselves to discover more. It seems that Britain’s children know more than ever, so yes, perhaps it is time we pushed them that little bit further. As for Radio One? Well I won’t be advising them to give up the day job any time soon but perhaps the bad results aren’t all that surprising considering they’ve probably not used anything they learnt in GCSE Maths since they walked out of the exam room door. Perhaps instead I should launch a campaign to call for exams to be made more relevant, obviously with the success of my campaign being measured on how well Radio One DJs cope with my modified exam papers, but on second thoughts… the Olympics are on… and I need to go and shout at the television… and tell the athletes that they’re all a bunch of lazy… …you get the idea.