He is 14 and sitting exams. And i'm just his mum standing here

He's 14. He's sitting exams. And I'm just his mum, standing slightly to the side of all of it. Two weeks ago I wrote about my fifteen-year-old daughter and her maths exam. About Pythagoras and angles of inclination and a maths teacher with the patience of an actual saint sitting at my kitchen table. About exam stress and chocolate on the counter and maternal pride that makes absolutely no sense but exists anyway.

I thought that was it for this year. One child in exam mode. One child practising and grinding and focusing. One child I'd carry across the finish line with warm meals and strategically placed snacks.

But no.

Because I also have a son.

A year early

My son is in his third year. He is 14. And he is also sitting an exam.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Third year and exam. Those three words don't feel like they belong in the same sentence to me, and yet here we are. Because this year he gets to sit his English exam a year ahead of schedule. Because he's good enough for it because he spent two years in bilingual, and therefore English, education. And that's why the school is giving him that opportunity. Because it means one fewer exam on his plate next year, which takes a real edge off when the pile is already tall enough.

It's a smart system when you think about it. Sit an exam early if you're ready for it, so you don't have to do it later. Like doing your grocery shopping before the fridge is completely empty instead of waiting until you're scraping the bottom. Efficient. Forward-thinking. Almost suspiciously mature.

The same exam

And now it gets interesting. Because his fifteen-year-old sister is also sitting her English exam this year. Which means they could, in theory, study together. Two children. One subject. One table. You'd think.

It's a reading comprehension exam. Read English texts, understand them, answer the questions. And this is where the reasoning begins. The reasoning I now know by heart because I've heard it several times. From both of them. Independently of each other, but with a striking number of similarities.

The reasoning goes like this.

You don't know which text you're going to get. So what exactly are you practising for? You can't know in advance what it'll say. You can't memorise the text because it doesn't exist for you yet. Practising is therefore essentially pointless because every text is different and you just read it when you get there and then you answer the questions.

Logical, right.

The watertight teenager argument

I'll be honest. There's a kernel of truth in it. You genuinely don't know which text you'll get. And if your English is already solid enough to read and understand, then reading comprehension isn't a subject that requires hours of sweating at the kitchen table.

But.

And this is an important but.

There's a difference between understanding a text and knowing how an exam works. There's a difference between reading something and answering the questions the way the examiner actually wants them answered. There are techniques. There are traps. There's a particular way those questions are phrased that you recognise immediately once you've seen it before, and that catches you completely off guard when you meet it for the first time on an official exam sheet.

Explaining this to two teenagers who share the same immovable conviction is a bit like trying to make water flow uphill. It just doesn't. It stays where it is. It looks at you with an expression that says: we have already decided this.

A rare moment of sibling unity

What does amuse me is that they are in complete agreement on this. Which is not always the case. A fourteen and fifteen-year-old are not always on the same side. Not about which series goes on the television. Not about who gets the bathroom first. Not about who ate the last biscuit that was clearly meant for someone else.

But on the subject of practising for English reading comprehension being largely unnecessary, they are one unified front. Fully aligned. They could practically have made a PowerPoint about it.

I found it genuinely endearing, if I'm honest. They're studying for the same exam. They're sitting at the same table. They've arrived at the same opinion about the preparation. A rare moment of sibling synergy that I let exist for a little while without pushing back.

Just for a little while.

What I said anyway

Because I am their mother. And mothers don't let these things pass without comment, because then we're not doing our job properly.

So I said: you're both right that you don't know the text in advance. And you're both right that your English is good enough to read and understand one. But practising isn't the same as memorising a text. Practising means getting used to the format. To the way questions are asked. To working under time pressure. To the difference between what you think the answer is and what the examiner actually wants to see written down.

They both nodded. In that way teenagers nod when they're listening but haven't necessarily decided to do anything with the information.

I know that nod. I had it myself once. My mother almost certainly recognised it too.

The quiet advantage of bilingual education

What my son does have, and what gives him a real head start, is two years of bilingual education. And that's not a small thing. Bilingual education isn't an extra hour of English per week. It's history in English. Biology in English. Just thinking and reasoning and writing in another language while you're a Dutch teenager who speaks Dutch at home and eats sandwiches and complains about the rain.

That kind of immersion sticks. It settles in. It becomes second nature.

He speaks it with an ease that genuinely catches me off guard every time. He watches series without subtitles. He plays games online in English with people from all over the world and does it like it's his first language. He reads it. He writes it. He practically breathes it.

His sister has a strong level too, but hasn't had that specific bilingual training. And yet they're sitting at the same table for the same exam. Which actually says quite a lot about where she is.

A house full of exams and one mother

So here we are. Two children. Exams.

And me in the middle of it. With tea. And chocolate. And the wisdom to know when to push and when to let go.

This one I'm letting go a little.

Because honestly, I think they're both going to be just fine. Not because practising doesn't matter, but because they both have the foundation. The language is there. The comprehension is there. And a healthy dose of confidence doesn't hurt on an exam either.

As long as that confidence doesn't tip over into just sitting back and doing nothing. But I'm only saying that here. To you. Not to them.

Do your kids have an airtight argument about studying that you genuinely can't completely refute? Tell me in the comments. I read everything and I don't judge. Unless it's about reading comprehension. In which case I honestly don't know anymore either.