To wonder about CSEs v O Levels

I went to grammar school and did O levels, you could stay on at school until you were 18 and do A levels. If you went to secondary school then you did cses and had to leave at 16. The most O levels you could take at my school was 10, and it was very rare for someone to get all As.

It was a different time back then, I don't know anyone at that time who had a private tutor for the 11+ or O levels.

If you were in highest set you also had the option to sit some exams a year early and then do a different subject for a year to gain more qualifications
eg I did maths then statistics so got 2 separate O levels
some people would do this to get 2 language O levels

I was at high school in the 70s at a big fairly rough comprehensive
Everyone was streamed by ability for English and maths at age 11 after tests in these subjects
At 14 we chose options for other subjects and again you were split by ability
Approx top 20% did GCE O levels
bottom 10-20% did either no exams or concentrated on just a few including English and maths
Everyone else did CSEs - if you were at the top end of CSE level you could opt to sit both exams in some subjects but your parents had to pay for one of them
some people did a mixture eg DB did O levels in his strongest subjects which were maths and sciences but did CSE in English, French and history
I was in highest set so did all O levels and the standard to get an A grade was very high

GCSEs were introduced in 1987. The exam candidates of the previous year were used as guinea pigs to standardise/cross reference the mark scheme. My school was used for chemistry and history - for those subjects we took the O level or CSE and the GCSE. Some borderline people took all three!!! It was a lot of papers. As a result I have 3 different 16+ chemistry qualifications!

How are science subjects examined now? My maths A levels were traditional 2 exams at the end of 2 years, chemistry and biology were modular though.

My kids are doing surds at GCSE which was the first subject we did at A level.

I did O levels.
My DD1 did GCSEs just before the recent reforms, so some controlled assessments, but terminal exams, no modular ones.
My DD2 didn't do GCSEs under the reformed 9-1 grades.

I personally don't think O levels were harder than what you would need to get 6-9s in the new GCSEs. They were different. GCSEs are meant to be (but actually aren't since reform) accessible to everyone, O levels were aimed at top 20% or so. Some things in maths have moved up to A level, but there are some things in the GCSE that I personally didn't do until A level.

I do think there is much more visibility now as to what is needed to get marks. It is much less of a 'dark art' than it was in the 80s

I can tell you aren't black then.

I thought that O levels and CSE merged to form GCSE, with Higher GCSE = O level and foundation GCSE = CSE.

Hi, I'm 52 and I was the last year of O levels/CSEs. O levels were graded A-E, (lCSEs were 1-5 (I think)

CSEs were less academically challenging and more vocational than O levels. A CSE grade 1 was equivalent to an O level grade C.

I went to a big inner London comp. Did my O levels/CSEs in 1987. At the time, about 30% of a 5th year (year 11) year group would ultimately go on to university, and would typically have mostly O levels, grades A-C at 16+, usually in 8 or 9 subjects.

Only about 10% of the year group would leave with fewer than 5 CSE passes.

Average would be somewhere in between!

GCE and CSE were combined to create GCSEs so yes there was a lot of dumbing down inthe creation of the new qualification.

Yes I remember now, my school was shit and only entered anyone for the intermediate paper, so the highest I could get was a B at gcse. There were people in my maths class that had been tutored and got an A * who couldn't cope with A level.

Interestingly, we’ve now moved back to a two tier system in Scotland, where the more able sit national 5’s and lower sets sit national 4. I wonder how those will be viewed in the workplace and whether those with them will be disadvantaged (simultaneously, I think I would have done well in the grammar system, and ds2 does better with practical / vocational subjects, so it’s not clear cut..)

I sat my GCSE,s in 1990 ,,so i was only the third year ro do them ny sister was the first in 1988 ,we did course work as part of the final mark and were always told GCSE,s were easier to pass ,i dont think sitting CSE,s meant somebody was below average ,it was just a different systern a much smaller percrntsge took Alevels and went to university .

Anyone at school when there were O levels and CSEs, I was, is so old now that who cares what people thought about them?

No one defined by an exam they took 40 years ago

As PPs have said it was a different world

Going back far enough, O-level was aimed at the top 20% and CSE at the next 40%, but I think it was more like 35% and "the rest" by the time they were replaced by GCSE (particularly after the raising of the school leaving age to 16). CSE grade 1 was equivalent to an O-level C+. There must have been plenty of people of above average ability with good CSE grades.

GCSEs came in in 1988. There were some "16+" exams on the run up to that, which awarded either a CSE grade or both a CSE grade 1 and an O-level grade depending on how people did - I guess they were trialling having a syllabus/assessment covering the whole ability range.

I went to an all girls school, got told by my teachers I would fail and I did. Went to 6th form college and got 5 O levels.

The top grade in a CSE was equivalent to a C at O Level

When GCSEs were brought in, they had both foundation and higher tier papers (and intermediate in some cases).

The top grade on a foundation tier paper was a C, whereas a higher tier paper went up to A*. It mirrored the old system, but if you got a GCSE C no one would know if you sat the foundation or higher tier paper.

I went to grammar school. Most of us did 9 O levels, but those in the bottom set were allowed to do CSE maths and science. Pupils at the secondary modern school did more of a mix of CSEs and O levels. Just doing CSEs would put him at the lower end, but if he got grade 1s that would be the same as 6 O levels. Remember that it was really unusual to get loads of As at O level - in my year of 120 I think 2-3 got all As.

CSEs were qualifications that had an end exam and also coursework so it didn't all rest on one exam at the end - and yes were considered to be more suited to less academically minded students. I did a mixture of CSE and O level. O levels were generally exam only although with my O level music I recall doing a project which was part of the final grade and also there was a performance element. Ditto food tech (HE) O level had a practical element.

I remember feeling embarrassed to be doing CSEs and it did single out students a little as being less able and there was a bit of sneering going on at my all girls school. I'm glad they were eventually abolished and replaced with one qualification for all.

Hmmm, not in Thatcher’s Britain of the early 1980s.

I did a mix of O Levels and CSEs. Currently doing a PhD...

O levels were before my time, how much harder than GCSE were they?

I have a feeling that a lot of the A level maths we did used to be covered by O level. I think I was most proud aof my B in A level maths, shit was hard.