Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to pages 45-46 of the Social Mobility Commission's report, Time for Change: an assessment of government policies on social mobility 1997-2017, published on 28 June 2017, what assessment she has made of the effect of the focus on evaluating pupils' learning of core content through examinations on levels of stress and anxiety among students.

Examinations are, by their very nature, stressful but the Government has already taken steps to reduce the examination burdens upon young people. At GCSE we have made examinations linear with examinations only at the end of the course of study, giving pupils at least two full years of study before they sit external examinations. We have also removed the incentives for multiple resits that were not helping children’s education.

At A level we have also made the examinations linear with no January assessment window, and have created a new structure that will enable students to study for two full years towards an A level without the need to take an AS level examination at all.

Schools are responsible for preparing all young people for examinations and should have strong pastoral support in place to help pupils deal with any worries they might have throughout the year.