To think GCSE are wrong for many kids

"GCSEs don't need parental input. Parents choose to micromanage. It's a choice, (generally a poor choice as it gives a false result) to become so involved"

A typical, highly judgemental comment you see regularly on MN. Nearly always from people whose children never needed any support. And mostly dishonest as well because lots of parents on here have their children in private schools where they are already getting extra support and have the advantage of small class sizes. What's the difference between getting extra support from a teacher or a tutor and a parent? If a parent is knowledgeable about a subject why can't they teach their child? That's like saying if a child needs extra teaching they're not worth teaching.

Katherine Birbalsingh (who knows a thing or two about education) said it perfectly: "If you want your child to do really well academically presume they're not learning anything in class and get involved. The other parents are doing it - they're just not telling you!"

Most of the secondary curriculum seems to be 'how to answer a 1/6/9 mark question' rather than taking much joy in learning things, in every subject.
Nailing the correct format in line with the mark scheme is much more important than the actual content.

This is exactly how I plan to play it with my oldest who be my first doing them.

I’ve always said to my kids that all they can do is their best and this absolutely doesn’t involve being so stressed they can’t function or having such a level of parental input it then isn’t their own work.

We are all different tho and I think that some young people maybe find it more stressful than others. My parents were great - supportive and not really pressured and there for us. I hear and see some very pushy parents and I’m not always sure that’s the right way to be.

We have had the same. Daughter taught by an examiner and she has been taught a formula for each question.

When I sat GCSE, students never saw a mark scheme and didn't have to read between the lines on what each question is looking for.

"Make sure you answer the question was the most advice we had", meaning the question on the actual paper without having to know how marks were awarded too.

We didn't have to learn any acronyms - 'pramshop' and 'daforest' and make sure we had included enough hyperbole, rule of 3, made up statistics etc. We just had to write as well as possible. My kid has had a lesson on these acronyms nearly every week with about 15 mins left at the end of the lesson to do any actual writing. Her homework isn't finish off this writing but more work on an app to pick out the rhetorical question, decide whether something is a simile or not.. Not one sentence she has created herself because the app can only work with set answers. And on and on with the tedious busy work when they'd be better encouraged to read an actual book!

We have had a recent graduate to help with English literature. I've listened in on most lessons and my goodness it has had so much value in and of itself. I don't actually care whether she jumps through the right hoops for the exam. She has had a whale of a time studying shakespeare and the context around it, learning to analyse poetry and express and flesh out opinions. At the end of it I have a daughter that will continue to enjoy poetry and Shakespeare and will read challenging books rather than being put off by her school experience.

GCSEs were designed to cover a broader curriculum than O-levels. They were different and may not have catered so well for that specific degree course.

I didn't have a GCSE or an A level in my degree subject. That is fairly common.

Yes, I'm a literature graduate but I daren't try to teach him because it's all so counterintuitive and prescriptive. I don't want to teach the wrong thing.

I've always advocated for a complete change into some kind of modular "school leaving certificate" where pupils can accumulate "Points" from modules over all five years and where they can re-take modules for basics if they don't "pass" when they take them

But all that happens then is it gets where everybody just gets kind of similar good marks. Like it or not, schools/colleges/unis are not just using gcses to check if students have achieved a particular fixed level, they also want to identify the more academically inclined of the cohort best suited to advanced study in that subject, and they need a spread of achievement to do that.

Except we had teacher assessment in covid & look what happened.

Massive grade inflation, teachers were incredibly over optimistic about their students.

Oh please. There are plenty of grads unemployed. And there are many school leavers who aren't.

YANBU - the school system needs a complete overhaul. There need to be better options than a system designed for 30% of students to fail for starters. Secondly schools need to focus more on critical thinking skills, practical skills and life skills and holistic learning rather than memorizing loads of unconnected facts.

I imagine those in support have academically capable children.

Nail on the head. I've always advocated for a complete change into some kind of modular "school leaving certificate" where pupils can accumulate "Points" from modules over all five years and where they can re-take modules for basics if they don't "pass" when they take them. At present pupils are pushed through year by year whether they've reached the standard of the year or not, so we're just setting them up to fail. If it takes several attempts to get through the "starter" modules on subjects like literacy and numeracy then so be it. It's utterly pointless trying to teach foreign languages to kids who can barely read and write English, likewise teaching Physics to kids who are innumerate. Making it modular (on a termly basis) just like Unis would give pupils more options, and allow them to try out subjects without "wasting" a full year, and the more able ones could specialise sooner and accelerate to higher levels in their chosen/preferred subjects or alternatively take a broader range of subjects. Something needs to change. One size DOESN'T suit all. We really threw the baby out with the bath water back in the 70s when the grammar/sec mod system was scrapped - it wasn't perfect but we should have worked on improving it and removing the problem areas rather than just scrapping it and making everyone do the same - different ability kids need different options.

DH was the first year to do GCSEs. He went on to Oxford and the first lecture was spent telling them exactly what had been cut from O-levels, what was therefore cut from A-levels to catch up and what therefore had to be added to the first year of the degree.

They were making the point that the first year was going to be brutal as they caught up.

In subsequent years they spread the catch-up into the second year as it was too much.

Only if you want to go on to further education and then get a job.

During the dreaded home schooling of covid , DS was in the last year of primary and DD was in year 10.
Primary "creative" writing was all about fronted adverbials and subordinate clauses and including the correct ratio of those....and DD had to do a piece of creative writing that necessitated each sentence having 14 words in it, iirc.
It was literally anything but creative!

Additionally introducing numbers really devalues the grade around 6s - a B used to be a brilliant grade but now some kids feel like they've failed in the education arms race.

Agree with that. I got all Bs which I was really happy with, as were my parents, but if I had got all 6s it would not have felt the same. Though its also numbers where I am but there's not so many of them (4-10, 4 being a fail, which fits more to the letter system better) and I'm getting used to it now.

GCSEs are a nightmare for some. The pressure to get 4s in maths and English for some kids is so stressful. And 30% of kids are forced to re-take with really poor results.

When I was a teacher 20 years ago there were more 'equivalent' alternatives alongside of GCSEs but Gove got rid of more vocational options for the 14-16 year old cohort and it's increased stress.

Additionally introducing numbers really devalues the grade around 6s - a B used to be a brilliant grade but now some kids feel like they've failed in the education arms race.

2.1/merit for one. First class and distinction for the other.

I must congratulate you on your outstanding parenting of your amazingly bright, talented children.
I mean, what did you hope to achieve on a thread about young people struggling with their GCSEs by boasting about how incredibly intelligent your children are? Hmm?
Your post is extremely tone deaf.
Read the room.
ikr

Arguably achieving top grades in GCSEs is not a signifier of high intelligence, many of average intelligence can achieve it, it's all about understanding the mark schemes, memorising, revising. I'd argue that the most intelligent can feel frustrated with the system. This is why I asked @EttesEttes what grades her offspring achieved in uni. Also GCSEs today are not comparable with what they were 10 years ago.

There were a couple of young neurodiverse kids on my DS Btec course who always struggled with reading comprehension but are at the start of a great career doing a tech apprenticeship. How is that not as capable as others? Yes there needs to be differentiation to make life easier to draw on strengths.

@User5667887765544331 But not as capable as others in a wider sense. There is a need to differentiate.

My.partner is American, as I suspect you are, and feels the same. I have to say, he knew a lot less at that age than UK counterparts and you consequently have to do and extra year of degree where you get spoonfed a bit and which costs a great deal. There also big issues of parents arguing for better grades in the school.system there because of the importance of teacher judgement.

It is widely agreed that there are too many exams per subject at GCSE. The stakes and competition also seem a lot higher than when I sat them but then parental involvement in children's lives is similarly way higher than it used to be. Be careful that you are making a comparison with how things actually are now in your own country as things have changed everywhere.

So I partly agree with you. I think testing is the right way but it needs scaling back and somehow the stakes reducing a little.

Given that we know that a lot of parents in some countries put enormous amount of pressure on their children to achieve highly in education (mainly in south East Asia, I believe) what is the mental health of these children like? What is the suicide rate?

What happens to children who aren't academically brilliant enough to achieve 14 GCSEs?

Tone deaf again students with Dyslexia and Developmental Language Disorder are disadvantaged despite being very capable.

I would agree with you if all of the questions made sense.
Many of them are designed to trip up students.

EttesEttes, 'less wordy' means fewer words. So, if the exam is testing functional maths, omitting narrative about Dylan baking a cake or getting a bus and just presenting the mathematical problem to be solved.

This would be useful for children in the early stages of learning English, those who are dyslexic and/or have some neurodivergence, and/or those who get anxious in exams.