What not to say to students experiencing exam stress

Exam stress is contributing to the growing need for mental health support in schools.
 
In her 2023-24 report, the children’s commissioner listed anxiety as the number one reason for referrals to child mental health services, and there seems little doubt that exams are a factor. 
 
In March the revision platform Save My Exams reported that 85 per cent of students experience exam stress, with a quarter of those describing their feelings as “nearly unbearable”. 
 
NHS England is providing more resources than ever directly to schools: in 2025 there were NHS clinicians in nearly 600 colleges and sixth-form centres to support students with their mental health, including managing exam stress. 
 
But when there is no clinician on hand to help, what can teachers do to reduce some of the anxiety surrounding exams?  
 
My work on exam stress focuses on the language we use when talking about exams or responding to young people’s anxiety. Sometimes even the most well-intentioned responses from adults can inadvertently compound stress. 

How to talk to students experiencing exam stress

By reframing how they talk about exams, teachers can help teenagers to build resilience. Here are three examples of what not to say, and how you could approach the conversation differently.
 
“What are you worried about? You’ve done so well all year!”
 
It’s easy to assume that a student who is on track to do well should be ready to glide into the exam room, scarcely breaking into a sweat. This assumption loses sight of the fact that stress is driven not only by the likelihood of a disappointing grade, but also by the likely scale of the disappointment. 
 
A hardworking student who has invested hours of effort may be very unlikely to miss their target grades, but the scale of their investment means that the emotional stakes are high. 
 
Reacting with surprise doesn’t help these students, but instead suggests that their stress is in some way inappropriate. 
 
A better response is to normalise their reaction. Say something like, “It’s understandable to feel nervous when you’ve worked so hard, but these nerves come from a good place - they’re there because you care about doing well. Stress is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.” 
 
“Just relax”
 
This go-to response is designed to encourage a student to calm down, but it’s not always heard in the way it’s intended. This is because the framing suggests that stress is something that can be turned off on demand. 
 
It can create unrealistic expectations for a teenager about their own emotions, and it doesn’t help them to learn that moving through an emotion takes time and practice. Instead, you could say, “Tell me more about how this feels. Let’s pause to understand the emotion and then work out how you can help your body feel calmer.” 
 
This response helps a teenager to take an interest in the feeling, understand it and invest in the steps that will help them to calm down, such as deep breathing and grounding exercises. 
 
“It’ll all be fine!”
 
This response aims to reassure, but it implicitly suggests that there’s no need to think about what will happen if the exam doesn’t go OK. 
 
In the run-up to exams, all teenagers have to carry the risk that they won’t get the grades they want. 
 
It’s much more constructive to help them think through what they’d do if that risk materialised. 
 
You might try saying, “OK, what does ‘going wrong’ look like? What would you do if that happened?” 
 
Focusing on, rather than ignoring, the risk helps a teenager to build their resilience; it equips them to believe that they can find a route through, even if they don’t get the grades they’re hoping for.
 
Stress is baked into the exam experience. There’s no way to remove it altogether. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s not necessarily a bad thing if exams are stressful. 
 
Exams create an opportunity to help teenagers grow stronger in their capacity to handle stressful situations. We can make such a difference if we remember that exam preparation isn’t just about preparing to do well; it’s also about learning to handle the emotions that accompany the process. 
 
Pausing to think about the language we use is the first step in helping students to become more confident and resilient as they learn from their experience of sitting exams.

Katharine Radice is an experienced secondary school teacher; transition and participation adviser at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge; and the author of Exam Stress: a practical and positive guide for teachers