Students across the country are navigating an assessment system that too often leaves them feeling overwhelmed, anxious and uncertain about their future. This week, I led a debate calling on the Government to seize the opportunity offered by the Independent Curriculum and Assessment Review to embrace ambitious reform and break the harmful link between exams and poor mental health.
We are facing an unprecedented youth mental health crisis. Recent figures from NHS England show that 1 in 4 young people are struggling with their mental health and the number of 16 to 24 year olds with a common mental health condition has risen by more than a third in the last decade.
I’m proud to sit behind a Labour Government that recognises the scale of the challenge. Almost a million more students will have access to school-based mental health support this year and 6,700 additional mental health workers have been recruited already. But we can’t ignore the impact the exam system is having on children and young people, and that’s why I’m calling for us to go further.
In my debate, I shared the experience of Paddy, a YoungMinds’ activist, who described how his A-Levels had made it hard to eat and heightened his OCD He described feeling as though he were “drowning in the sea of pressure” and that he still has nightmares about his exams two years after finishing them. Sadly, Paddy’s experience is not an isolated example.
Research from YoungMinds’ Missing the Mark campaign echoes my call for bold reform, revealing the profound impact exams are having on young people. Over 60% of GCSE and A-Level students struggled to cope during exam season, with many experiencing panic attacks or even suicidal thoughts, self-harm and taking time off school.
Year 6 pupils said that their SATs made them question their abilities for the first time, losing confidence and missing out on sleep as a result. SATs are used to monitor school performance, but there must be a better way of driving high standards that doesn’t put the weight of accountability on children at such a formative age. We urgently need to rethink our approach to primary assessment, and all options should be on the table.
The last major review of the assessment system took place a decade ago, placing greater emphasis on high-stakes, end-of-course exams. As a result, 16-year-olds in England spend 31.5 hours sitting their GCSEs, significantly more than their peers in other high-income countries. What we’re seeing now is the fallout of these changes: a much less flexible system putting added pressure on young people which contributes to a growing mental health crisis.
The current system isn’t just damaging to wellbeing, it’s failing to effectively assess the skills young people need today. A focus on memory recall is pushing educators to “teach to the test”, covering content at pace at the expense of students developing a depth of understanding of a subjects’ core concepts.
Young people deserve a fairer, more balanced approach to assessment, where wellbeing and academic success aren’t at odds with one another. We need to rebalance the system, reducing the dominance of high-stakes, end-of-course exams. A diversification of assessment methods could reduce pressure on young people, allow them to showcase a broader range of strengths and better prepare for life after school.
A well-designed modular, multimodal assessment system could be equally robust and offer fairer ways to measure achievement. Universities across the country already do this to great effect and this could offer a model to learn from for our school system.
More widely, a whole-school approach is essential to supporting children and young people’s mental health. A balanced assessment system supporting wellbeing could be completed by a curriculum, teaching and learning approach that promotes resilience and supports social and emotional learning.
Children and young people are experts in their experience – they’re telling us that something’s wrong and we must listen. They need us to embrace ambitious reform now, not in another ten years, to help tackle the youth mental health crisis and deliver a lasting assessment system that supports their wellbeing as well as academic success.
Driving the debate for assessment reform in Westminster
