BY ARTHUR GREENHALF

I think changes to GCSEs and A-levels are going to have dramatic impacts on grades.

Students rely on past papers and textbooks for revision, but none of these revision tools are available to anyone studying the new courses.

Without these fundamental study tools, students are at a disadvantage and will likely achieve worse results than pupils born only a year or two before.

My brother, who is three academic years below me, will face far tougher GCSEs and so is likely to find it harder to get into sixth form, college and university.

Changes to maths mean that students no longer receive formula sheets and instead have to memorise them – how this benefits children not wishing to continue maths as A-level is totally beyond me.

It simply adds to the towering mountain of facts that students must already memorise.

A petition to reverse this has so far gathered 88,054 signatures. The changes also mean English literature exams will be closed book, meaning students will have to memorise 15 poems, a Shakespeare play, a 19th century novel and a modern prose or drama.

They will receive only a small extract from Shakespeare and the 19th century novel, and one of the 15 poems.

When sitting my GCSEs, I had more than 20 exams for which I spent months revising. This was balanced out; we also had coursework which was completed in advance. Coursework was a safety net, making up a significant chunk of your final grade.

The new GCSEs have had this safety net torn away. Coursework is absent from many GCSEs, meaning that new exams are not only harder but longer.

I believe that the lengthening and deliberate toughening of exams will cause a massive drop in grades, putting students at a lifelong disadvantage.