TESTING TIME
Pupils in floods of tears over ‘hardest ever’ GCSE and A-level exams with some suffering panic attacks over sitting 30 papers
STUDENTS have been left in floods of tears by GCSE and A-level exams which have been described as the “hardest ever”.
They have even suffered panic attacks after a shake-up of the system saw some forced to sit over 30 papers.
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The reforms were the brainchild of Michael Gove during his time as education secretary - in a bid to drive up standards.
Tougher GCSEs are now graded from 1 to 9, with 9 being the highest mark.
Coursework and assessment on a module by module basis have been replaced by end of course exams that contain much more challenging content.
Around 750,000 students will sit them and A-levels this summer.
The changes saw 18-year-old vlogger Jade Bowler emerge from her biology A-level in floods of tears.
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She said: "The paper had 42 pages. It was so hard. I didn't even finish it. Everyone in the exam room burst into tears, including me. My heart has never beat so quickly."
Elsewhere on social media the new exams came under fire.
Worried dad Nick Dixon said: “Four weeks of the new more rigorous, more demanding #GCSE exams and my kid just had the first full-on panic attack.”
Alexia wrote: “Cheers, UK education system for making me feel the worst I could imagine!”
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Kirsty Scott said her history exam “was genuinely the hardest one I’ve sat so far”.
The new exams has seen schools forced to hold early morning revision sessions and some have resorted to sending teachers to anxious pupil’s houses to make sure they turn up,
It also reported that at The Malling School, in Kent, head teacher Carl Roberts said one pupil had broken his glasses on purpose in an attempt to avoid sitting the tests.
One bright pupil broke down in tears in a GCSE exam and another had a panic attack.
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A history teacher from Gloucester told BBC Radio 5 Live: “New GCSEs are a totally demoralising experience for staff and students. Every lesson we had to teach a different topic and then had to move on. Students had no time to reflect.
“Before and after exams I witnessed students with ashen faces in tears and others being physically sick. Most students missed questions or simply could not understand the question.”
The exams have been designed to drive up standards, and bring England into line with top-performing systems in the Far East and identify academic high-fliers for top universities.
They were introduced following a damning 2013 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
It found England was the only country in the developed world in which adults aged 55 to 65 performed better in literacy and numeracy than those aged 16 to 24.
Schools minister Nick Gibb previously said: “These more rigorous, gold-standard GCSEs are helping to nurture the next generation of scientists, linguists and historians. Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and last year, teachers and pupils responded well to the new English and maths exams.'
A spokesperson for the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, said: "The Government sets the content of the new A-levels and GCSEs.
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"The exam boards work hard to support and prepare students and schools for the examinations.
"The grade boundaries reflect the difficulty of a paper and a candidate’s award will reflect his or her effort and hard work.”
The Department for Education said: "We trust schools not to put undue pressure on young people when administering exams."
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