Coursework has been criticised recently by senior political figures, such as Michael Gove, who has been seeking to phase out coursework, instead focussing on more rigorous end of year exams. But what do the pupils taking these public exams think?
Most pupils resent the fact that coursework seems to drag on for extended periods of time. Anthony (15) says that “it is tiring to just keep on doing coursework, I definitely prefer the exams being at the end”. This sentiment of coursework dragging on is definitely a common theme, pupils doing DT coursework, for example, spend almost every day after school between September and Easter doing coursework, Loren (16) even said that he dedicated most of his free time doing DT coursework, he even spent 4 hours every day after school for two weeks doing his coursework. This shows how time consuming and demotivating coursework can be. The GCSE years are extremely stressful and free time could be better used doing leisure activities to remove the stress. Arman (16) suggests that he could focus his time revising more for harder, content heavy subjects, such as history; which he suggests that “a good grade in history would look really good”, showing how important efficient use of free time is important.
Overall there is a consensus among pupils to remove tiring coursework and just do exams at the end of year.
