YEAR 11 pupils are being unfairly used as guinea pigs for this summer's changes to GCSEs, says a Worcester headteacher.

Neil Morris told parents Government reforms will mean their children will take more exams and will face confusing changes to their grades.

A radical shake-up to the GCSE grading system sees the familiar A* to G grades dropped and pupils awarded numbers from 9 to 1 for English and maths this summer.

Achieving a 4 will translate roughly into what used to be a C grade with marks that once were high C grades and low B grades now earning students a 5, which will be regarded as a good pass.

Only pupils who fall into the top 20 per cent of students achieving a grade 7 or higher for their results in both English and maths will be awarded a 9 - which will replace the A* as the highest grade.

Grades for other subjects will be awarded as A* to G this year with the new numbering system being phased in for other subjects in 2018 and 2019.

At a recent meeting at Christopher Whitehead Language College, in St John's, parents were told their children will now face up to 35 hours of exams in June.

They also heard that, with nine weeks to go, exam boards had not yet finished writing the exams - leaving teachers still in the dark as to what their students will need to know.

Mr Morris, the school's headteacher, said: "Teachers who are talented and really experienced just haven't got a clue whether it's a four or a five.

"And what other system would you do nine weeks beforehand?

"Parents should be aggrieved about their kids being used as guinea pigs."

Mr Morris said he and the school's governors had considered entering pupils for iGCSEs, which are recognised as a broad and robust qualification and used by many independent schools.

He said: "We have considered it. The private schools still can do iGCSE which we've done in the past but we would get 0 per cent on the league tables."

Mr Morris said he had to take into account that parents might not understand why the school appeared to be faring badly in performance tables and he was not confident he wouldn't subsequently be penalised by Ofsted inspectors.

He added: "It is so unfair. They (independent schools) have not had to deal with all this change."