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Nick Gibb: Extra exams would cut risk to pupils’ mental health

Nick Gibb has said that the way to ensure that exam pressure does not take a toll on pupils’ mental health is to give them more exams.

But teachers have taken to Twitter to contradict the school standards minister, claiming that academic pressure is affecting the wellbeing of their pupils.

Speaking to MPs this morning, Mr Gibb said: “The way to deal with exam pressures is to make sure that young people are taking exams earlier on in their school career – the end of Year 7, the end of Year 8 and so on – so they’re used to taking exams.”

He denied that the government’s reforms to the GCSE system was having an adverse effect on pupils’ mental health. “I don’t think it’s right to say that reforms to the curriculum are the cause of young people’s anxiety and mental-health pressure,” he said.

For example, he said, removing the modular element of GCSEs has meant that pupils sit fewer exams during the course, and feel less pressure to resit exams if they did not perform as well as expected.

Read the full article on the Tes.

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