I'm taking my GCSEs right now and can quite honestly say:

Why didn't this happen sooner?

Anya, Brighton,

Exams are a true assessment of a child's intelligence. Once upon a time an 'A' grade meant the child in question was bright with the ability to absorb and retain information, but with the introduction of coursework, an average intelligence child has just as much chance to excel. How do we now distinguish these pupils from the cream of the crop?

Jennie, Fareham, Hampshire

With four of my six children having just sat GCSEs, AS levels and Sats exams this year, I must say that I am a firm believer in no coursework and sitting an exam only. Ultimately the one thing which will count at university, in the workplace or later in life is the ability to work under timed pressure. It is easy for anyone to get a good grade at coursework, and I was appalled at how much direction, coaxing and re-write possiblilities my older three have had in the last three years where coursework was an inherent part of the exams. My O level Russian exam consisited in part of a Times article I had to translate into Russian, my son just did his A level German last week and didn't even need to be able to read any literature let alone do any translations, so much for keeping up standards.

Mei-Ling, High wycombe, Buckinghamshire

I can understand the approach of gaining extra support for coursework when it is do out of school situation however, in my own experince I find coursework better showed my ability then exams. Not everyone can deal with the exams and not everyone is good at them. I would also like to mention that with regard to the debate on ICT coursework there would never be enough time to do the work. When I did mine we had a hardly enough time to the coursework as it was even with time outside school. The prospal above about doing the coursework in the classroom sounds fair and a way to prevent outside help however my question is would this leave enough time for all the topics to covered for the exam?

Rebecca , Exeter,

I think coursework is great it is a chance for students to excel if they are not good at tests. If coursework does get abolished you better be ready for an uproar in your classrooms. A recent study showed that Britain's kids were the most unhappy children in the world this will just make them unhappier. Do we really want that?

Anya, London, UK

Why O Why couldn't they have done this ealier, coursework is a joke, in the majority of my subjects coursework will have pulled my grades down!
But i must point out that the severity of cheeting varies wildley, from just asking your perents to help you construct a sentence, (something that most students will be guilty of) to some studens copying the entrity of there older siblings coursework.
Exams are just a fairer way of assessing people, everyone has the exact same questions (the topic or tiopics of coursework can be altered to suite the students) and they must complete it in the exact same time limit. There is also no hiding behind woffel, exams test what you know, but more often than not coursework tests how well you can write about what you know.
If some students cannot cope with exams then they will just have to deal with it, they are here to stay. Exams are the most important part of the assesment for almost all further and higher education qualifications.

Victoria, LEICS, UK

THIs is ridiculous ! they will still find a way to get round it ! and for some people like myself c/w pulls them through the grades

Lauren elisabeth jones, porthcawl , south wales

Hurray. Though 10 hour open book exams are a bit excessive for young pupils.
The most insidious problem with assessed coursework is that pupils are busy, so the non-assessed work gets zero priority. Which means that everything has to be assessed even where, as with creative writing in English, there is not much point doing so.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK