Why I Let My Daughter Walk in the Rain to Her GCSE Exam – And Why the System Is Failing Her Generation
I’m Gracie Opulanza. I didn’t pass many exams, but I’ve built businesses, reviewed over 400 luxury hotels, driven Bentleys through storms, and mentored brands across the globe. Now, I’m homeschooling my teenage daughter.
And yes, she’s sitting her GCSEs but not without me raising some serious eyebrows about the system.
Professor Using OpenAI’s ChatGPT
A senior at Northeastern University filed a formal complaint and demanded a tuition refund after discovering her professor was secretly using AI tools to generate notes. The professor later admitted to using several AI platforms and acknowledged the need for transparency. The incident highlights growing student concerns over professors using AI, a reversal of earlier concerns from professors worried that students would use the technology to cheat.
Some students are not happy about their professor’s use of AI. One college senior was so shocked to learn her teacher was using AI to help him create notes that she lodged a formal complaint and asked for a refund of her tuition money, according to the New York Times.
She’s being privately tutored. One-on-one. Funded by me. Because I’ve seen enough of the classroom circus to know that when it comes to learning grit, confidence, and emotional resilience schools, even the expensive ones, are failing miserably.
This week, my daughter walked into her GCSE business exam early, calm, and prepared. Passport in hand. Three pencils, two sharpeners, an eraser, and a calculator. We’d rehearsed it all. Not the exam content — the mindset.
She walked in wet from the rain. I let her feel it on her face. I knew it would ground her.
At the door, I watched the private school students arrive. Escorted from cars. Designer umbrellas held tightly by parents. Some kids were sobbing. Others throwing pencils in frustration. One walked in with one pencil. And these are the children of the wealthy. The supposedly privileged. The privately educated. Yet they were unraveling at the seams.
Why?
Because no one taught them grit.
I don’t mean academic hustle. I mean the kind of grit you need when the exam question doesn’t make sense, your brain goes blank, and the pressure is suffocating. I taught my daughter that grit is writing something even when you don’t know the answer. It’s keeping your head down when chaos erupts around you. It’s staying focused while the kid next to you crumbles, or cries, or snaps a pencil in half.
That’s real-world training. That’s business training. That’s life.
Homeschooling is more than academics. It’s character-building. It’s mental health maintenance. It’s preparation for a life where things don’t go to plan and where no one not even your rich parents can save you.
I’ve watched too many private school students fold under pressure. Why? Because their parents always step in. Fix the problem. Make the call. Pay the fee. Rewrite the ending.
But grit? That can’t be bought. It’s modelled.
Did Simon Pegg Fail His Daughter by Saying No to Tom Cruise?
Imagine this. Your daughter is personally invited by Tom Cruise to attend the red carpet screening of Mission: Impossible. A rare, once-in-a-lifetime moment. But she can’t go.
Why? Because she has her GCSE exams.
Simon Pegg said no.
Tom Cruise reportedly said, “Come on — you don’t need exams! Look at me, I started work at 16.”
The irony? He’s not wrong.
Tom Cruise is living proof that not all success comes stamped with an exam board logo. He didn’t play it safe. He didn’t wait for a certificate. He built an empire off charisma, courage, and raw grit.
Meanwhile, Pegg’s daughter sat at home, revising for a system that might be obsolete by the time she turns 25.
So I ask did Simon Pegg do the right thing? Or did he fail his daughter by denying her an experience most teens could only dream of?
We’re told school matters more than moments. That exams define our future. That sacrifice means success. But what if those messages are outdated?
What if the greatest lesson she could have learned wasn’t in a textbook — but on a red carpet, shaking hands with people who bent the rules and still made history?
I homeschool my daughter. I know the pressure. I see the system cracking.
She’s doing her GCSEs too. But if Tom Cruise rang tomorrow? I’d pack the glitter heels and grab the umbrella.
Because that’s the kind of mission worth accepting.
Failure Means Grit
In my house, we talk about failure. We talk about awkwardness. We talk about writing anything in the face of a blank page, just to say you showed up.
And when private school teachers approach me — curious about my digital nomad lifestyle, my work, our travel — they ask:
“Aren’t you worried about your daughter falling behind in school?”
No. I’m worried about their students falling behind in life.
Because while they’re perfecting outdated exam techniques and memorising theories that ChatGPT can now rewrite better in seconds, I’m teaching my daughter how to adapt, how to survive, and how to shine without approval.
GCSEs? They’re broken
The system is a pressure cooker designed to test recall, not resilience. It rewards compliance, not creativity. And frankly, it’s dead. AI has already outpaced it. What we need now is education that mirrors the real world — fast, unpredictable, human.
I’m not here to shame parents who send their kids to private school. But I am challenging the illusion that money alone guarantees preparedness. It doesn’t. I’ve seen too many privately educated kids arrive in luxury, only to panic when reality sets in.
So yes, I let my daughter walk in the rain before her exam. Because she needed the water more than she needed the dry. She needed to feel something real something wild. And it calmed her. Nature always does.
I’m not raising a perfectly polished test-taker. I’m raising a woman who can lead, fail, try again, and keep her dignity. Who can stand in the storm, literally and metaphorically, and still find her breath.
And as a former teacher, I’ll say it loud: the system is not evolving fast enough for our children.
It’s not the content that’s broken — it’s the context. We’re testing in silence, in rigid rows, in sterile rooms, while the world outside is loud, messy, collaborative, and AI-driven. It’s time to rethink what success looks like for this generation.
So to the educators, the parents, the students sitting exams this year I see you. I respect your efforts. But I ask you this: when the test ends, when the papers are marked, when the stress fades… will your child walk out smiling?
Mine did. And she finished early.
That’s grit. That’s freedom. That’s the future.
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