GCSE year for pupils is one of the most stressful times of a teenager’s life.

Tests and mock exams are taking up pupils’ time and energy, when they should be concentrating on learning, and in the past month or so they have had to spend evenings attending open evenings for sixth form.

My daughter, 15, was off school last week with stress. Not an illness, but stress, caused by too many things on her mind. This is surely not right, and not good for her and other pupils in the same situation.

I’m sitting down with her to work out what we can do as a family to reduce the stress and make things better for her, but she shouldn’t have been put in this position at all.

Can schools please reduce the pressure on pupils in GCSE year? They’ll achieve far better results if they approach exams in the right frame of mind.