A headteacher has criticised government plans to replace GCSE grades with a numbered system because the overhaul involves the abolition of coursework in most subjects.

The reform aims to allow examiners to distinguish between the brightest students in the biggest reform of exams for decades.

But Paula Dixon, headteacher at Upton-by-Chester High School, is unhappy with the removal of coursework from subjects like English language, with the qualification assessed entirely by exam.

As with the current system, students’ speaking skills will be tested, but won’t count towards the overall grade. A fifth of marks for written exams will be dedicated to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Mrs Dixon told Sky News: “Without the coursework you are going to be relying totally on exams, and after two years students are going to be tested on the knowledge they can retain, so it’s not actually, I don’t think, going to be an improvement. I think it’s a bit of a retrograde step.

“If it’s simply on the day - how you perform in that one or two hour exam - I don’t think that’s fair, and I don't think it’s going to test all the wonderful skills that we teach in schools that could be tested in different ways.”

Upton-by-Chester pupils being inteviewed by Sky News reporter Mike McCarthy
Upton-by-Chester pupils being inteviewed by Sky News reporter Mike McCarthy

Currently, in some subjects such as maths and science, high numbers of pupils achieve A* and A grades which makes it difficult to pick out the top students, it has been suggested.

The new scale will see an extra grade added into a revamped qualifications system from one to nine – with nine being the highest mark available.

The first three subjects to be revamped – English literature, English language and maths – are due to be taught in secondary schools in England from 2015, with the first exams taken in the summer of 2017. These three subjects account for around a third of GCSEs awarded in England each year.

A year later, in 2016, new GCSEs in science, history, geography and some modern foreign languages, as well as other subjects often taught in schools like religious education and art, will be introduced to schools.

Education Minister Elizabeth Truss said: “What we found recently in the International Study of Adult Skills is that England was one of the bottom-performing countries in terms of literacy and numeracy, so unfortunately our school-leavers are not getting what they need and what employers need in terms of those core skills.”