Petition · past parliament

Allow GCSE students to bring poetry anthologies and novels into English exams.

Rejected 17 signatures

What the petition asks

In the past, all GCSE students had the poetry anthology in the examinations, along with the novels and plays needed in their exams. Now, we are expected to memorise all the poems, and quotes from all books. This is too high of an expectation and is putting too much pressure on our students.
Year elevens who sat the 2016 exams and previous all had anthologies and the needed novels.
It's the same in the math exams, all equations and formulae must be memorised.
This is too much on our current and future year elevens.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Timeline

7 Feb 2017 Petition opened for signatures
8 Feb 2017 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 17
Status Rejected
Rejected 8 Feb 2017

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.