The cancellation of GCSEs (Report, 18 March) has given students who are in a minority and attend state schools, like me, a huge disadvantage compared with my grammar school counterparts.
I believed that the GCSE exam hall was a level playing field for all abilities, races and genders to get the grades they truly worked hard for and in true anonymity (as the examiners marking don’t know you). Yet we were stripped of this opportunity to show what we can achieve and not let our Sats grades (predicted grades) define who we are after five years of sweat and tears.
I took my GCSE English literature exam in year 10 and achieved a grade 8, which is equivalent to an A*. Whereas, my predicted grade was a 4, which is equivalent to a C.
We are being given grades based on mere predictions. I know many grammar school students who are predicted grades that range from 7-9 because of their good Sats grades, so because of this they will most likely achieve very high GCSE grades that were granted to them because of some papers they took when they were 10 or 11.
Yasmin Hussein
Birmingham
