The exam system is failing our children. Discuss.

Though I was completely out of my depth and humiliated on a daily basis, I came home each night exhausted but elated.

There was something raw, messy, unpredictable, and life-affirming about school life. And I loved it. So much so that I trained as a history teacher and worked my way up to become a headteacher. 

Schools are one of the few, possibly only remaining places, where human beings from all backgrounds mix. They are communities in which young people are taught to listen, respect each other and disagree agreeably. At best, they are a safe place for each young person to find their voice; who they are, what they stand for and what they want to do with their ‘one wild and precious life’. 

Schools should be a microcosm of what we value; young people, a nation’s umbilical cord to a better future.  

What we teach the next generation – the knowledge, the values, the skills, the attitudes – matters deeply and determines nothing less than whether our society thrives or fractures.  

So, this is the moment, with a new government and Britain’s future uncertain, to return urgently to the question that should be at the heart of political debate: what kind of young people are we trying to nurture?

As parents, we are desperate for our children to flourish, to be able to form strong relationships, to make wise choices, to know the difference between right and wrong, to show kindness and generosity to others, to hold down a decent job. 

Employers seek out those who can communicate, persuade, empathise, and work in teams. Those with honed critical and creative thinking skills, the ability to show initiative and problem solve. Those who bounce back from setbacks, resilient in the face of feedback, striving to get better. 

For society, surely we want every citizen to reach their highest point of contribution. Young people who can distinguish between the truth and lies they encounter in a madly unpredictable media. 

Most of all we want young people to leave school as powerful learners who can constantly acquire new skills, adapt to the latest technology and who have a curiosity that can seize the opportunities ahead. 

But school today does few of these things. We have three-dimensional children operating in a one-dimensional school system. School is becoming less a place of human flourishing and more a relentless treadmill. Not an eye-opening experience to inspire imagination, but a daily injunction to “eat your greens”.  A place where a love of learning is little by little eroded. 

Initiative? Children park that at the school gate; told what to do for every second of the next eight hours. 

Problem solvers? The only problem most students face in school is how to wolf down their meal in a 30-minute lunch break, or how to cram in enough revision to pass the latest exam or test. 

Communication skills? In most lessons, the default mode is silence, with students told to shut up far more often than speak. 

As one young 16-year-old described it:

“They say high school is the best years of your life – but not in this world, where qualifications matter more than personal qualities. I feel like I have grown backwards, as if I now know less about myself and who or what I could be than when I started.”

Yet, we justify the current approach in a single idea that bulldozes all before it: education as passport. 

We tell young people that the miserable years of tedious exam practice that crowds out any love of science, history or languages, are all worth it to get a passport to the next stage. GCSEs a passport to A levels. A levels a passport to a degree. The degree a passport to a brilliant career. 

But wait. When you pop out the other end with that exalted passport, employers are increasingly saying “sorry mate, we’re not letting you in. You’ve got a passport; we want a visa. Your As and Bs, your 2:1, your Russell Group university – it’s not what we’re looking for. We want to hire people with ‘something about them.’”

The gap between the diet of schools and the world young people will enter has never been bigger. 

If employers are now rejecting many of the winners from our current system, what about the losers? 

Like any powerful drug, the long-term side effects of the exam factory are deeply harmful – the wasted talent, the mental health problems, the teachers leaving the profession in droves. 

There is something immoral about a system which labels at least a third as failures – worthless, literally worth less than their peers. The neurodiverse, the makers, the creatives, the mavericks. In short, the kinds of people who have powered civilisation for centuries, all leave school patronised and pitied. The quest for parity of esteem between university and vocational and technical pathways has been a total failure in recent decades. 

We all know that success in school is not the same as success in life, yet we pretend that it is. 

In this country, in the States and across Europe – those without university degrees –without the credentials needed for this so-called meritocracy, are left behind. And because retraining later in life is often so difficult, they never feel they get a second chance.  Many feel increasingly that politics – the system – is not delivering for them. 

Somewhere in all of this, we have lost the ability to imagine a better future for our children.

And this new government now has the chance – backed by a huge majority – to do something about it.  

Curriculum and assessment reform should be one of the biggest, boldest and most important reforms of this Labour government. 

And it would be a tragedy if the recent rows over academies made Ministers stick with the inadequate status quo for a quiet life. 

We should be under no illusions. Many have a vested interest in the current system. 

For them, the exam factory is simple and easy to measure. It appears to tick the ‘rigour’ box. And anything that diverges from it, that broadens education, is quickly attacked as lowering standards, or worse still ‘progressive’. 

Added to that, it is the area of policy most plagued by people’s own experience. Politicians too often want to replicate their own schooling, on the comically flimsy grounds that they survived it. That is no way to prepare young people for the future. 

The evidence is now overwhelming from more than a dozen respected reports, including from the Times Education Commission and polling data that shows parents, teachers and employers all want change. Change that sets up young people to thrive. 

We need a curriculum of head (academics), heart (character) and hand (creativity). And here are seven things that would transform the curriculum and exam system to make it fit for the modern world. 

1) Create a modern ‘basics’ 

Literacy and numeracy are the bedrock for all learning. And they must be non-negotiable. But today we need two more ‘basics’ – skills that young people must master as vital tools for the modern world: oracy and digital skills. The way IT and technology has been taught in schools for the last 30 years has been a joke. It’s got to change. If young people leave school unable to understand how to work with AI to enhance their work and lives, they will be at a huge disadvantage. Oracy – speaking and listening skills – are as important as reading and writing. It’s time they were woven into all aspects of the curriculum. 

2) Add Regional autonomy 

There should be a far smaller core curriculum that is compulsory for every child. After that, there should be the opportunity to tailor the curriculum to the needs of each region. Mayor Andy Burnham is, for example, creating an MBACC for Manchester of those things that are vital to succeed in the local economy. 

3) Give every child an entitlement to high-quality creative arts.

The government’s EBACC is an accountability measure that does not include music, art or drama. It is a Philistine’s charter. To deny young people access to the arts is to deprive them of joy and the opportunity to learn something that will give them immense fulfilment throughout their lives. Every child should get an entitlement to the creative arts throughout their schooling. 

4) Broaden post-16 education

A levels are too narrow. Vocational pathways are badly thought through. We need major reform of post-16 qualifications with a new broader qualification. It should build on some of the ideas contained in the successful and popular International Baccalaureate which ensures every young person chooses options: ‘majors’ and ‘minors’ and also focuses on creativity, service, and an extended piece of research.  

5) Let students take exams when ready 

Why do we force young people to take 30 GCSE exams all in one month at the age of 16? With new technology, it is far easier for young people to take them when ready, (as we do with grade exams in music) a lot of which could be done online.  

6) Create a digital profile for every student 

Young people leave school with a set of letters and numbers but no recognition for their many achievements and capabilities. A digital profile – a unique URL link – providing all of the evidence, including a portfolio of best work and achievements not just in school but out of school, would give young people a far richer passport for employers. 

7) Create space in the curriculum for debating challenging issues

Speaking to sixth formers across the country in the last few weeks, it is clear that young people are desperate for space in the curriculum to debate and test out their thinking on current issues – for example their view of democracy, the uses and abuses of social media, the role of men in society. Without a safe space to do this at school, the more aggressive online echo chambers take over. The new curriculum needs to revamp the idea behind citizenship education, which too is an afterthought, and use it for this vital work of deepening understanding and respect. 

Education is the neglected piece in the growth agenda, the vital piece in Labour’s opportunity mission, and the central piece in the fight against the rise of far right populism. 

Labour has the chance to give young people back their future, and in doing so get Britain back on its feet.

Peter Hyman was an advisor to Keir Starmer and before that prime minister Tony Blair. In between, he was a headteacher and history teacher.