Furious pupils and parents picketed the gates of Birmingham school in a row over GCSE results.

A number of Year 11 children at Golden Hillock School in Sparkhill were left devastated after discovering they had been issued a lower than predicted grade in their English exams.

The dip in English grades meant the school posted one of the lowest overall results in the city on results day last Thursday.

More than 50 placard-waving parents and pupils gathered outside the school on Golden Hillock Road demanding answers over the lower results.

Banners included: “Do some ting now” [sic] and “carelessness ruins futures”.

The protest comes as schools across the country raised concerns that English exams had been marked too harshly, with schools reporting an unprecedented number of fails among their pupils.

A spokesman for Golden Hillock said the school had made “significant progress” in recent years, and that it was concerned over the GCSE English results.

The protest was organised by parent Sophia Begum, whose 16-year-old son Shamas achieved all A* and A grades in his exams – including an A in English literature – but was graded C in English language.

She said: “He was predicted an A in 2011, and then he was downgraded to a B prediction, and now he has a C.

“The school has said its a national problem, but neighbouring schools like Small Heath and Waverely have shown an increase, in my opinion it runs deeper than this.

“My son was gutted, he has always been very ambitious and wanted to get into a red brick university.

“Too many have been affected badly by this and that is why we are here.”

Some 39 per cent of students at the achieved the Government benchmark of five or more A*-C grades including maths and English, which was below the national floor target of 40 per cent.

It was also well below the 58 per cent the school had expected to achieve in this summer’s exams.

One affected pupil, who did not wish to be named, said: “I felt really angry when I found out.

“It felt like they let me build my hopes up. I was supposed to be doing a level three diploma in health and social care at college, but I’ll have to do level two now because I don’t have a C in English.”

A spokesperson for Golden Hillock school insisted teaching and learning standards were “consistently good” across the school, including the English department.

The spokesman said: “As a school we have significant concerns about the GCSE English results this summer, because many of our students have not received the GCSE English grade that we expected

“This has significantly impacted on the English A*-C results and consequently the headline figure of five A*-C with English and maths.

“This issue has been mirrored across the country as has been widely publicised in the national press.

“We are currently analysing in detail information at student level to support remarks and appeals, and we will continue to contribute to the national discussion.”

“Whilst we did not achieve our English target, we achieved our expected 66 per cent A*-C in maths.”