Sussex teachers have voiced their concerns since learning schoolchildren will no longer be allowed to sit the GCSE exams they revised for next month.

Pupils across the county will be affected by the changes, announced by The Secretary of State for Education, which will mean only a student's first entry to a GCSE examination will count in their school's performance tables.

This change is being made to address the significant increase in early entry in recent years.

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Headteachers, including at Patcham High School, Brighton, and Blatchington Mill School, Hove, have criticised the changes.

Pupils at both schools were due to sit exams next month but were told on Friday this was no longer possible.

Head of Blatchington Mill Janet Felkin said on the school's website: “I and my colleagues, in this school and beyond, are outraged at this scant regard for our professionalism.

“There never seems any account taken of how much consideration we give to each student's route to success.”

She added: “I feel this is interference of the worst kind and has removed strategies that have been successful for many cohorts of students.”

Patcham headteacher Paula Sargent said in a letter to parents: “I do feel the negative implications for the school will be enormous if we go against the Secretary of State's policy, as much as I may profoundly disagree with it.”

She added: “This announcement, coming as it does with absolutely no warning, has meant that we, along with all other schools across the country, have had to rapidly re-think our strategy for the forthcoming November exam sitting.”

Meanwhile Warden Park Academy in Cuckfield also criticised Michael Gove's policy.

The school said: “The government has decided the 'speaking and listening' controlled assessment that most of our year 11 students have already completed will no longer count towards the English GCSE qualification.

“It is unprecedented, in my experience, for assessment arrangements to be changed by a Secretary of State for Education half way through a course and doesn't seem fair to students.

“To use a rather worn analogy this isn't just a question of moving the goalposts but more like changing the game's rules at half time.”