The past two years have seen exceptional disruption to exams and learning as a whole. The Covid pandemic meant students and teachers had to grapple with a new reality of rolling lockdowns, school closures, home-working, exam cancellations and the introduction of teacher-assessed grades (TAGs). 

And although children of all ages will have felt the impact of the pandemic, for pupils sitting their GCSEs over the last two years, there’s been the added pressure of preparing for milestone assessments – a naturally stressful event – during a time of heightened national uncertainty and social isolation. 

For some, these challenges were made even tougher by the digital divide, with an estimated 9% of families lacking access to a laptop, desktop or tablet at home. 

Evidence suggests that the impact of all of this on teens’ mental health has been significant. Recent Department for Education figures revealed that over 77,000 children had been assessed as having a mental health need by councils on 31 March 2021; an increase of 25% on the same measure two years ago. 

The NHS, meanwhile, reports a 77% rise in the number of children needing specialist treatment for severe mental health issues, with over 400,000 under-18s referred to NHS England for serious concerns like self-harm and eating disorders between April and October 2021

Anxiety and resilience

Last year, the Oxford University Press (OUP) surveyed more than 8,000 children aged between 7 and 14, from 85 UK schools, asking them to choose the top words they would use when discussing health and wellbeing. Tellingly, children chose “anxiety” as their word of the year for 2021 (with 21% of the vote), followed by “challenging” (19%), “isolate” (14%), “wellbeing” (13%) and “resilience” (12%). 

It’s interesting to compare this to teachers’ responses – 31% of teachers chose “resilience” as their top word. 

In this report, we’ll dig further into teachers’ views and experiences, looking at the key wellbeing factors – including the pandemic, among others – that they believe are affecting Y11s preparing for exams. We’ll also bring you actionable advice from educational psychology experts on how to help Y11s cope with exam pressure, manage stress, and stay resilient in the face of daily challenges inside and outside of school.

The results were clear: almost half of teachers felt that Y11 students are coping worse with exam pressure this year. This is a big leap from our January 2020 survey, before the start of the pandemic, when only 29% of teachers said that exam pressure had worsened in the past few years.

Although there could be any number of reasons for this jump, it seems likely that it’s partly due to ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic – as well as the fact that 2022’s assessments will be the first GCSE exams to go ahead under ‘normal’ conditions since 2019. 

These results were largely consistent across all regions in the country. However, teachers in schools with the highest proportion of students with free school meals (FSM) were more likely to report that their students were coping ‘worse’, compared to their colleagues in more affluent schools – at 53% and 43%, respectively.

Reflecting on the specific wellbeing issues affecting Y11 students, we asked teachers to single out the problems that they felt had notably worsened in the past two years. Echoing our 2020 survey – and the OUP’s ‘word of the year’ – anxiety emerged as the biggest concern, highlighted by 70% of teachers, compared to just under two-thirds two years ago.

However, ‘lack of engagement with learning’ was also called out by 61% of teachers as a growing problem, a proportion that was slightly up (from 55%) in 2020. Interestingly, there were significant regional differences in perception on this factor: 49% of teachers in London and 55% in the South East felt disengagement had worsened, compared to 71% in the North West. 

Although the exact reason for this disparity is unclear, it could potentially be due to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on this region. As of May 2021, the North West had reported more Covid infections per capita than anywhere in the UK, with likely knock-on effects on pupil and staff absences – and inevitable increased learning disruption. 

In our 2020 survey, teachers highlighted ‘lack of parental engagement’ and ‘too much social media and passive screen time’ as the biggest harmful factors for their pupils. That’s a trend that continues this year, with all three factors chosen by over 50% of teachers. 

However, it’s clear that uncertainty surrounding the pandemic continues to be a big source of concern. Almost half (47%) of those surveyed felt that worries about school closures and changes to exams were damaging students’ wellbeing. 

In a similar vein, the same proportion of teachers agreed that their Y11s were under emotional strain due to anxiety about the impact of the pandemic on their grades – despite Ofqual’s assurances around providing advance information on exam topics to ease the revision burden.

Digging deeper into these results, there were some noticeable differences of opinion both at a micro level - between teachers of different subjects – and at a macro level, between different UK regions.

Maths and Science teachers were less likely to call out attainment concerns as a key worry for their students (both at 44%), compared to their colleagues in the Arts and Languages, at 61% and 59%, respectively. 

Zooming out to look at trends across the whole country, in the North West, Yorkshire and the North East, ‘low aspirations and a lack of role models’ emerged as some of the biggest concerns (for 47% and 48% of teachers) – compared to just 30% in London.