To: This petition is for anyone who cares about the mental health of the UK's young people.
Revert back to the old GCSE system!
Scrap the recently introduced 9-1 GCSEs for ALL subjects and revert back to the older, more mental-health friendly A*-G system.
Why is this important?
Yesterday I woke up to the second week of my GCSE exam period, turned on the radio and listened to a heart-wrenching news story about a boy my age who had sadly committed suicide because of exam stress. I ate my breakfast while reading a news article about the impact of the new GCSEs on our mental health, which featured stories of panic attacks, suicide attempts, breakdowns and anxiety issues. All of which were affecting people who were between 15 and 16 years of age.
Frankly, it's beyond a joke. I can't believe the government has had the sheer audacity to defend this insult to child welfare time and time again. I should not be accustomed to the sounds of my fellow students crying and even vomiting from stress, but I am. You can dress this petition up as adolescent angst or unwillingness to learn all you want, but the fact is that if your education system has single-handedly tripled the number of schools applying for NSPCC support due to mental health issues, it needs to change.
A complete lack of coursework, over-emphasis on one-off exams and a complete lack of empathy has turned the new GCSEs into a living nightmare. The exams have been ruined. English and Science are now glorified memory tests that rely more on remembering the right quotes and equations than they do on actual English and Science skills. Maths is so difficult that last year, the pass mark for one exam was 18%. I must conclude that this new system has not benefited UK education in any way, and that when I have children of my own I would be better off emigrating to a country where they don't have a 1 in 10 chance of developing a mental illness. And if the government is listening, they might consider spending more than £8 per person on people affected by mental illness as well.
This petition won't change anything for me. My yeargroup is already eyes-deep in stress, anxiety and tears and it's too late to recall our exams. But if future cohorts can be spared this complete failure of an exam system, we should at least try.
Frankly, it's beyond a joke. I can't believe the government has had the sheer audacity to defend this insult to child welfare time and time again. I should not be accustomed to the sounds of my fellow students crying and even vomiting from stress, but I am. You can dress this petition up as adolescent angst or unwillingness to learn all you want, but the fact is that if your education system has single-handedly tripled the number of schools applying for NSPCC support due to mental health issues, it needs to change.
A complete lack of coursework, over-emphasis on one-off exams and a complete lack of empathy has turned the new GCSEs into a living nightmare. The exams have been ruined. English and Science are now glorified memory tests that rely more on remembering the right quotes and equations than they do on actual English and Science skills. Maths is so difficult that last year, the pass mark for one exam was 18%. I must conclude that this new system has not benefited UK education in any way, and that when I have children of my own I would be better off emigrating to a country where they don't have a 1 in 10 chance of developing a mental illness. And if the government is listening, they might consider spending more than £8 per person on people affected by mental illness as well.
This petition won't change anything for me. My yeargroup is already eyes-deep in stress, anxiety and tears and it's too late to recall our exams. But if future cohorts can be spared this complete failure of an exam system, we should at least try.
