Exam stress due to ‘fragile’ teenagers not harder tests

EXAM stress is down to “mentally fragile” teenagers rather than tests getting harder, the chairman of Ofqual has said.

The “rising levels” of anxiety in young people mean it is “more difficult” for them to handle GCSES and A-levels, according to Roger Taylor.

Exams have been made harder under a package of reforms introduced by Michael Gove, the former education secretary, in a bid to raise standards and reduce the number of students getting top grades.

Teachers’ unions have complained that the tougher exams have left students feeling anxious and stressed. But Mr Taylor said that children reporting higher levels of exam stress is “entirely consistent with children being more mentally fragile”.

There is a “huge difference” between exam stress and anxiety, he added, and the latter was on the rise among young people.

“The fact there are rising levels of anxiety among teenagers will mean that at the most stressful times children will find it difficult to deal with,” he told the Times Education Supplement.

“But that can create the impression that it is the exams that are creating the higher levels of anxiety amongst students, and the crucial thing to understand is that the evidence for that is very weak.”

Mr Taylor said it is not that exams are becoming more stressful necessarily, but that “young people are experiencing more mental health difficulties and consequently finding the process of examinations more difficult to cope with”.

Last year, a Girlguiding survey found that anxiety around exams was cited as a leading cause of stress in those aged 11 to 21, with 69 per cent saying it was the main cause in their age group.