The majority of headteachers feel GCSE exams should be reformed or scrapped, according to a poll carried out by the Association of School and College Leaders, published today.

In a poll of 799 heads, 86 per cent of school leaders said that GCSEs should either be scrapped and for assessment at 16 to be reviewed, or that they should be retained but reformed. Nearly two in five leaders (39.55 per cent) said they thought the qualifications should be scrapped.

The news follows comments from several leading private school heads that GCSEs should be replaced.

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Nearly nine in 10 school leaders - 88.49 per cent - also felt that GCSEs did not work well for all pupils.

Many of those who felt GCSEs did not work for all pupils said the reformed qualifications, which were introduced from 2017 and were designed to be more rigorous, and are graded from 9 to 1, are not accessible for many lower-attaining pupils, including those with special educational needs.

They reported that gaining a grade 3 or below in their GCSEs left pupils feeling like “failures”, and criticised the heavy content and increased difficulty of the reformed exams which were exacerbating pupils’ mental health problems, they said. 

“Because GCSEs are now so content-laden and deliberately harder, they disenfranchise many students for whom these exams are just too daunting. This is leading to greater anxiety and mental health problems for these students,” one headteacher commented.

Others criticised what they perceived as a “one-size-fits-all” approach to assessment at GCSE and pointed out that for pupils who did not achieve a grade 4 in English and maths - a third of young people referred to by ASCL as the “forgotten third” - this represented a “lifelong disadvantage”.

Many who felt the exams should be scrapped felt they should be replaced by lower-stakes exams, with some suggesting there should be more focus on technical or vocational education. 

Many who felt GCSEs should be retained but reformed said there should be more tiered papers available for pupils of different abilities over a wider range of subjects.

“Ensure all exams are graduated in difficulty so that every current ability level can access them while also stretching the most currently able further into each paper. Many exams are pitched at the top level from Q1,” said one head.

Today, Rachael Warwick, president of ASCL, will tell 1,000 delegates at the association’s annual conference in Birmingham that the government should reconsider how it assesses pupils at 16.

“Is it really too much to ask that the government looks again at GCSEs?” she is expected to say.

“That it recognises that the reforms it introduced to deliberately make GCSEs harder have resulted in life becoming even more difficult for the very children who most need our support? Surely, the fact that this is being said by school leaders - the people who deliver these qualifications - should be listened to.”

“The pressure of a large number of terminal exams and the ignominy of grades 1 to 3 are creating young people who exhibit unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety.”

“Add to this the pernicious potential of social media to attack self-esteem and perpetuate bullying, and the fact that nearly a third of the country’s children grow up in grinding, relentless poverty, and we have a perfect storm.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We reformed GCSEs over several years because employers told us they were failing to prepare young people for the future. We want to give every child the best start in life and the greatest opportunity to fulfil their potential.

“Exams are an essential part of ensuring that young people can acquire the knowledge and skills they need, but should never be at the expense of a young person’s wellbeing and we trust schools to work with parents to support young people to do their best.”

They added that the reformed qualifications were in line with standards in other high-performing education systems and that the government had no plans for further reforms of the GCSEs.