(Picture: PA Archive)
School leaders have called for GCSEs to be slimmed down and reformed with an end to pen and paper exams and more online assessment.
The Association of School and College Leaders said the exams are “rooted in the 1950s” and should be modernised.
It comes as thousands of 16-year-olds are waiting for their results which will be released on Thursday and are expected to be lower than last year.
They are the first cohort of students to take GCSE exams for three years after they were replaced with teacher assessments during the pandemic. Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said: “This is a time when we need to celebrate their achievements...But looking to the future there is a very strong argument for reform of GCSEs. The current system which is assessed almost entirely by a vast number of end-of-course pen-and-paper exams puts pupils under a degree of pressure which is unnecessary.”
He called for a “slimmed down” set of qualifications assessed by a variety of methods including online assessment.
It comes after Kevin Stannard, director of innovation and learning at the Girls’ Day School Trust, also called for radical reform of GCSEs to make them less “high stakes”.
Mr Stannard said: “GCSE students aren’t leaving formal education so why do they need to be spending vast amounts of their time on this battery of exams?”
Lord Baker of Dorking, who introduced GCSEs as education secretary in 1986, has said they are “unnecessary” and should be replaced.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change today called for GCSEs and A-levels to be scrapped in favour of continuous assessment between the ages of 16 and 18.
