YouTuber Jade Bowler, who shares revision tips with her 190,000 followers, posted a video of herself sobbing after being faced with a 42-page paper

Parents have slammed the 'disgusting' pressure faced by pupils who have been left in tears after sitting tougher GCSE's and A-levels.

Teenagers have had panic attacks, been sick or collapsed exhausted at their desks following the biggest exam shake-up in a generation.

Teachers say pupils have been left feeling demoralised after being unable to finish papers and failing to understand all the questions.

Reforms mean that around 750,000 teenagers are sitting tougher GCSEs and A-levels this summer, with some completing more than 30 papers.

New GCSEs will be graded 1 to 9, with 9 being the top grade, to allow more differentiation between the highest performing pupils.

The changes were triggered by former education secretary Michael Gove following research showing British pupils were falling behind peers in other countries.

Employers have long complained that youngsters do not leave school with the right skills and campaigners have pointed to a 'dumbing down' of the curriculum under the previous Labour government.

YouTube star Jade Bowler shared her anguish with the world after running out of time in her A-level biology exam

But students have criticised the exams on social media, with many saying they left them in tears.

YouTube star Jade Bowler, who shares revision tips with her 190,000 followers, posted a video of herself sobbing after being faced with a 42-page paper.

'I have never in my entire life done as badly as I did in that exam,' the 18-year-old said.

She added: 'I didn't answer about four questions. I'm not going to try to hide how appalling I found that. I just ran out of time.'

Parents have also complained saying their children have been left in tears over the exams

Another pupil, Emma Wickham, tweeted: 'Don't think I've ever cried so much about school till A-levels!! Stressed is not even the word, someone put me out of my misery.'

Kirsty Scott said her history exam 'was genuinely the hardest one I've sat so far'.

Another teen agreed, adding that she had emailed her teacher after being thrown by the questions.

One told how she was being pushed to the brink of a mental breakdown over the exams.

Students have taken to Twitter to reveal how stressful they found the exams, with some claiming they almost had a 'mental breakdown'

'Chlo' wrote: 'Exams are really getting the better of me almost had a mental breakdown over chromatography saying I'd forgot to revise it and took me 10 mins to remember that's chemistry..'

Another said: 'I could cry right now I am absolutely not okay.'

When and why changes to GCSE's and A-levels were introduced Michael Gove announced sweeping reforms to the structure, style and content of GCSE's and A-levels when he was Education Secretary in 2013. The core changes included making the exams more challenging, providing more essay style questions, making them harder to resit, and removing coursework for the majority of subjects. He told MPs at the time: 'By making GCSEs more demanding, more fulfilling, and more stretching we can give our young people the broad, deep and balanced education which will equip them to win in the global race.' The changes to AS and A-levels were first taught in schools from September 2015, with the first results for AS lvels in 2015 and for A-lvels in 2017. More subjects are being added for next year. New style GCSE's were first taught in English language, English literature and maths from September 2015, with the first results issued in August 2017. More subjects have been added for this year and next. There is also a new GCSE grading system, with grading moving to a 9-1 scale instead of the A* to G. Advertisement

Parents also complained, with one tweeting: 'Not sure who the new science and maths GCSEs are designed for Michael Gove but I had a daughter in tears last night saying, 'I've worked so hard but don't feel like it's paying off as the exams are so difficult...' This from a confident, able student!'

Louise Wearden wrote: 'Tonight my beautiful, bright 16-year-old daughter cried so hard in fear of her GCSE maths paper & English lit paper 2!

'The new exams are so tough & pressure too much!'

Mother Alison Barnett told Mailonline: 'My son is 17 and was the first year of doing the GCSE new system.

'It was hard going. There is far too much pressure for the age group. Not every child is an academic and this is wrong.

'Michael Grove should be made to sit the exams himself. Some have 22 exams and more. It's absolutely ludicrous.'

And parent Shazia Aktar, whose 15-year old daughter is doing her GCSE's branded the pressure students are put under as 'disgusting'

She told Mailonline: 'I have a 15 year old daughter who cried when she returned home from school on Thursday after finishing her history paper.

'She was so upset she locked herself in her bedroom, she didn’t get to complete her paper. I'm gutted for her as a parent as I know how hard she has studied.'

Another parent, a secondary school teacher who has a 16-year-old son currently taking GCSE's, told Mailonline they were 'horrified by the amount of work and pressure put on child.'

They added: 'In previous years I am certain that she would have almost “enjoyed” these exams as they would have been an opportunity for her to show her knowledge and enthusiasm for her subjects.

'However, because of the excessive content of the new syllabuses, unlike previous years, she did not even get a study leave period as they had not finished covering the syllabus.

'She has come out of many exams demoralised and angry that so much of the work they have done was not tested.

Some students told how they broke down in tears after sitting this year's exams

'Hardly surprising as although there is an increase in content there doesn’t appear to be a corresponding increase in exam time. It’s astonishing.'

Tanith Carey is author of the book ‘Taming the Tiger Parent: How to put your child’s well-being first in a competitive world' and has a 16-year-old daughter Lily, who is currently taking her GCSE's.

Ms Carey, from Highgate, North London said: ‘Children in the UK were already the most tested in the world before the Government made the subject areas they had to cover this year so vast, they now feel it’s almost impossible to cope.

‘The scope and the scale of what is being tested is just totally overwhelming.

Parents have also complained, with one tweeting: 'Not sure who the new science and maths GCSEs are designed for Michael Gove (pictured) but I had a daughter in tears last night

‘For example my daughter Lily'shistory exam covered the run-up to WW2 war in Germany, the Russian revolution and Civil War, American History from the 1950s to the early 70s, and the China from the turn of the century to the early 80s.'

‘That’s was just one GSCE.'

The mother added: ‘By making exams so much harder and grading them with numbers up to 9, all that is happening is that a huge number of children feel totally hopeless - particularly now that GSCE’s are now much more important to their university entrance chances now.

'Indeed I have already heard about children having break-downs, suicidal thoughts and fainting during exams. I think we need to keep a close eye on incidents before and during exam times to see if there's a direct correlation.'

Teachers have told how they have been forced to schedule extra lessons and set additional homework just to cover the new syllabuses.

An English teacher at a west London comprehensive said: 'I've got a girl in my Year 11 class who's perfectly capable but she's stopped coming to school because she's finding it too overwhelming.

'I have to run two extra one-hour lessons a week at 7.45am. It's not a refresher or revision class, it's because we haven't got through the new syllabus.

'In GCSE English it's all exams – there is no coursework – and pupils are not allowed to bring in any of the texts. They effectively have to memorise three texts and 18 poems. The expectation is killing them.'

A history teacher from Gloucester told BBC Radio 5 Live: 'New GCSEs are a totally demoralising experience for staff and students.

'Every lesson we had to teach a different topic and then had to move on. Students had no time to reflect.

Would these questions have stumped you too? GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE How does Shakespeare present Macbeth and Banquo's attitudes towards the supernatural? GCSE PHYSICS Discuss whether 'sieverts' - a unit of measurement used for radiation doses - should be changed to the Banana Equivalent Dose, an informal measurement of radiation exposure. Work out the radius of a magnesium atom. GCSE BIOLOGY Explain why carrots do not increase in mass when they are boiled. Advertisement

'I had to set hundreds of hours of homework and by the end of Year 11 I had set nearly 100 homework tasks including revision and catch-up work.

'Before and after exams I witnessed students with ashen faces in tears and others being physically sick.

'Most students missed questions or simply could not understand the question.'

However, the reaction by students and their parents was also ridiculed by others telling them to stop complaining.

One university student wrote: 'Can those going through GCSE’s currently stop complaining. I’ve just finished my first year at Uni; shut the hell up!

'Your life is easy, like maybe if it were A-levels, it would give you some excuse to b***h and moan, but no, not for GCSE’s!’

The new maths and English exams with the numbered grading system were phased in last year but this year will be the first time pupils are sitting new exams in 20 other subjects, including science, French, German, Spanish, history and geography.

A grade 4 is a pass, equivalent to a C, while a grade 7 is equivalent to an A. Speaking in May, schools minister Nick Gibb said the new qualifications were designed to be on a par with the best performing education systems in the world.

He said: 'These more rigorous, gold-standard GCSEs are helping to nurture the next generation of scientists, linguists and historians.

The new qualifications have been designed with employers in mind (stock image)

'Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and last year, teachers and pupils responded well to the new English and maths exams.'

The new qualifications have been designed with employers in mind following consultation with specialists.

For example, the new science GCSEs now include space physics, and the new computer science GCSE will provide greater focus on programming.

It comes after international tests by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found 15-year-olds in England have been slipping behind their peers in many other countries in reading, maths and science.

YouTube star sobs after biology exams Jade Bowler, who shares revision tips with her 190,000 followers posted a video of herself sobbing after her A-level biology exam After crumbling under pressure in an exam, most students would head for the privacy of the school toilets. But a YouTube star shared her anguish with the world after running out of time in her A-level biology exam. Jade Bowler, who shares revision tips with her 190,000 followers, posted a video of herself sobbing after being faced with a 42-page paper. 'I have never in my entire life done as badly as I did in that exam,' the 18-year-old said. 'I didn't answer about four questions. I'm not going to try to hide how appalling I found that. 'I just ran out of time and when you run out of time and don't answer questions there's no chance.' Miss Bowler, who has a place to study biology at Bristol University if she scores AAB in her exams, added: 'I feel so disheartened because I put so much time and effort into it and any examiner could read my answer and think I don't know the content just because I was rushing.' Advertisement