My daughter has had to self isolate, along with many of her year group and many, many other Year 11 children. She is supposed to do GCSEs’s next year. It’s very stressful for them at the minute. Lost teaching time, missed lessons, lack of face to face teaching in conjunction with the uncertainty around exams is having a detrimental effect on her and her friends. She’s a clever girl, but will not achieve her true potential because she hasn’t had the education she deserves, and it’s not looking like things are going to get any better before Easter. By then things will be too late for many of these teenagers, they won’t get the grades they deserve and the stress they’ll be under is so, so unfair. These children shouldn’t have to suffer & cope with these difficult situations. They’re children, not adults, they should be helped and supported, not left to struggle.

Why not do the sensible thing and accept that the only fair way to grade gsce’s next year will yet again be teacher assessment? These children need reassuring, supporting and help. Not uncertainty and stress. They are children being pushed into a negative adult world far to quickly. They need a break, they need support, they need certainty of what they are working towards not indecision and dithering.

Do them a favour, be fair. Get the government to do as Scotland & Wales - act now not next year. Think of their mental health before it’s too late, please. Support our children.

Many thanks