The Year 11 students of GEMS have had to study during their LNY break due to their mock exams being immediately after. This is extremely unjust as most of the student population participate in this cultural event and haven't had the chance to meet their relatives in two years. Many students have submitted to barely sleeping and studying until late hours in the night because they have to visit relatives in the day. The mental health of the students has been greatly affected due to this, and in turn their physical health too has been affected. Help us postpone mocks.

A survey was held to learn the situation of students. Here are the results:

When asked from a scale of 1-5 on their confidence of writing their mock exams (1 being the least confident, 5 being the most) 29/37 students responded 1 or 2.

33/37 students said their revision for mock exams was affected by LNY celebrations.

36/37 students said yes to needing more time to revise.

33/37 students said yes to postponing mock examinations.

Here are some comments on students' thoughts on mock examinations straight after LNY break:

"i think that the school should be more considerate for there are alot of people celebrating lny and we dont get to spend time with our families because we are stressing over the mock exams. The school should handle the date of the exam with knowledge over the fact that most students have travelled to their home towns to meet with their extended families. It has been 2 years since we were able to go to other states to meet family relatives and we wouldnt want to miss the opportunity to meet them because we never know when we would ever see them again. I feel as though students cant spend quality time with their families in peace due to the upcoming mock exam dates are just around the corner."

"I feel that I don’t have enough time to revise as well as celebrating LNY, since I have to celebrate LNY with my family during the day and do revision every night until midnight. I feel stressful during the break."

"It's really stressful having to balance between meeting relatives and studying. Not to mention, it is a taboo to study during LNY which is very disrespectful. Most of us have to go back to our hometowns as we couldn't during LNY last year, which means that we have limited access to our study materials."

"I personally think it is unfair for the people who are celebrating chinese new year as some do not have the time to study in their hometown and also how they may not have the suitable studying environment where they can study efficiently."

"i'm really stressed and i don't think this is fair, this mocks should be when we are ready, and not take up our traditional holiday with studying for it. it feels a bit discriminatory towards those celebrating LNY/CNY."

"it’s unjust, chinese new year is a very important tradition and season, and it only happens once a year, for the mindfulness of cny to be jeopardised for something that can be changed easily is very unfair"

When asked for last words:

"im going to fail"

"Hoping that mocks can be postponed, so every student can have enough time to prepare for their mocks"

"The mocks should be postponed :)"

"Please let us have more time to revise, we really need it."

"plsplsplsplspls give us more time so that we can score in our mocks :) thank you!"

"LNY is a very important celebration for my family, I couldn't celebrate with them because I was trying to revise but revision during this time isn't effective either because of all the noise and events happening around the house. I think the mocks should have been before the break or at least not right after the break."

Dear parents and anyone who is reading this,

We are overworked and stressed. We are burning out. There was not enough time to juggle both. Please, we aren't robots and we definitely feel unready. Postponing the mocks will be for the best. As you know the marks for these mocks are extremely important for college applications. Happier and healthier students will produce better results. Mom. Dad. Anyone. Please. Help us. Let us breathe.