Is it worth buying a good DSLR camera for my second year of photography GCSE?

I'm asking because I was looking at the Nikon d3100 as the camera to buy but is it worth spending £450 on a camera I will use for one year? The camera I use at the moment isn't very good and takes about 10 seconds to take a photo making moving phoos impossible! I can't buy it at the moment as we don't have much money and it has to be a joint birthday and christmas present (my birthday is in August). I feel bad as we don't have spare money and £450 is a lot! But at the same time I feel I'm going to fail without a better camera:/
Thanks for reading and any answers would be much appreciated.

I never did photography at GCSE so I can't relate, however I do it now at A level where it is compulsory. It sounds like the camera you have is really letting you down and it's understandable that you can't let that happen. A DSLR is very expensive and is a really big committment. People only usually buy them if they are really interested in photography. You say you need it for just one more year, does that mean you are not going to pursue photography after? If so, then it might be a good idea to consider a camera with a lower price. It does not mean the quality will be any worse to be honest and you can buy one that will take photos faster. You'll find mostly with a lot of digital cameras is that they have very similar features to DSLR's:] such as shutter speed which can make the photographs be taken much quicker if that's the effect that you want to create and because you don't have much money, a camera like that is only around 130-200ish pounds which is pretty much half of what you would pay for an expensive DSLR. The camera I had before my DSLR was perfect. I could use it and it wouldn't be drastically different. It's a Kodak EasyShare Z915. Maybe you could consider or it or really just looking anywhere really:] it doesn't have to be a DSLR. I know a few people who did photography at GCSE and they used really basic sony ones. As long as it can take pictures and it has your vision and your happy with the controls then it will be fine.

- To whoever clicked thumbs down on my answer - I know it's not the best advice. I was just trying to help. If she had more money I would really really encourage a dslr but since she doesn't I just simply said that she doesn't have to, even though that might be the best option.

Indeed £450 is a lot to spend for one exam. Look at second-hand earlier model DSLRs, you might get for £230 upwards. Indeed the advantage of a DSLR is quick response and storage, so test any camera you look at for that quality. Don't worry about megapixels, 6Mps are plenty.

If you are giving up photography after a year then why bother? I would drop the class and save myself the money. Take a different class that doesn't have the entry barrier of a digital camera.