How 'hard' are GCSEs compared with 'O' levels?

Deffo easier no doubt about it

Do you think there'll be less so called lower worth degrees being done with the higher tuition fees coming in?
My son thinks the fees should be higher for the less intellectual subjects (an intellectual's opinion of course!) and lower for the degree subjects the country really needs - like maths and science I suppose!

We are doing the rounds of the 6th forms last night as DS is year 11. We were told that there is a very big step between GCSE and A level.
I wouldn't say my DS is working hard at all outside of school, but he apparently does work hard in class and nobody seems to notice that he doesn't do much revision and seems to be on track for his A/A* in every thing but MFL, but he has an spld and he struggles with learning long passages of text.

My son is sitting mainly IGCSEs because many of his teachers believe there is too big a gap between GCSE and A level. No modules. Pretty well everything is examined at the end of year 11. More stress around then, but at least he's not constantly being examined.

He has no trouble whatsoever with the Foundation Papers and can work quite a way through the Higher Tier ones.

There is an overlap between foundation and higher papers so you would expect someone who can do the foundation paper to be able to do a lot of the higher paper.

A lot of maths teachers would agree with you about the amount of low-level content on the higher paper. Maths used to be three tier, foundation (up to a D) Intermediate (up to a B) and Higher (up to A). The old higher paper could be more rigorous as it didn't have to contain the lower level questions the new higher paper does so you were faced with more of the difficult content. The system was scrapped because people thought it unfair to cap foundation students at a level below a C. It was also suspected that A candidates could solve quadratic equations but not find percentages because they'd left that easy content behind years ago, and so that content needed to be assessed too. When the new tiering was introduced, students were losing their A* not because they got the hard stuff wrong, but because they got the easy stuff wrong.

Incidentally, your DS might be able to get 100% on the foundation paper at age 11, but this, (despite your opinion of him) is exceptional. I am teaching sixth formers now, some of whom are now sitting their third attempt at GCSE maths having failed to get a C twice previously on the foundation paper (roughly 75%). There needs to be a maths exam at Y11 which caters to their ability as well as to the ability of your DS. At the moment, I agree that the upper end are being short-changed, but not, IMO because the content isn't challenging enough, (there will always be those who go beyond that by Y11) but because there isn't enough of this challenging content on their exam.

Bruffin, YES, I am THAT old! My sister did her O levels in 1976 and was graded A to C, but I was graded 1 to 6 (9 for my latin O level, but I didn't care about that much).
noblegiraffe - my DS is Year 6. He has already done several GCSE papers. He has no trouble whatsoever with the Foundation Papers and can work quite a way through the Higher Tier ones. I don't let him attempt topics he has not yet covered, but he is definitely already into B territory.
He is bright, but he's not THAT bright. I don't think he SHOULD be able to do Higher Tier Maths at age just eleven. The fact that he can, and he is NOT a child genius by any means, indicates to me that the level is pathetically low.
I would LOVE to be able to say that my child IS a genius, but I am not that deluded.

What I will say is that when a class of eleven year olds in Wales can sit GCSE Maths in Year 6 (no idea if this was just Foundation or not) then we should be getting seriously worried about our standards. Maybe one child in a few hundred should be able to do that, not six (I think it was) in one small welsh school.
BTW DS got nearly 100% on the Foundation Paper.
He should NOT be able to do that at age eleven.

My old Uni, for the easiest similar degree to mine want ABB; in my day it was CCC, and I got in with BCE!

I've just googled the entry requirements for my old university course.
1986 I was asked for BBc
Now they want AAA

I am pretty sure this is not just in Maths. It must be the pattern throughout.

Maths is fairly unique in how it is levelled. Each topic in maths is graded, so solving a basic quadratic by factorising is grade B, solving a more complicated quadratic which requires the quadratic formula or completing the square is A*. So in maths, the questions are graded whereas in something like history, it's the answers (e.g. in history an open question can give an answer which is C grade, to get an A more historical detail needs to be given or a comparison to another situation - I'm guessing as I don't teach history, but in maths an answer is correct or not - to go up a grade you need to answer a harder question).

Maths is also a spiral curriculum, each year builds on the previous knowledge. Yes your DS could get a C in Y8/9 (roughly level 7). He needs to be of that standard if he wants to get an A/A* in Y11.

I apologize I found out that pre 1975 it was numerical

There was no grade 4 level for o'level maths, it was CSEs that were graded numerically . O'levels were graded A-E.

Aha! Soap box coming up.
GCSEs are structured like KS3 sats, I have lately discovered, at least they certainly are in Maths!
I found quite recently that what I had suspected for a long time was true - a Maths GCSE nowadays is composed of 50% low demand work (level C and D) 20 to 25% mid demand (level B) and only 25 to 30% high demand (A and A*). The mark boundaries do not even follow this - to get an A you only need to have done the low demand and less than half the mid demand and got it right. To get a C (a pass!) you only need to get 23.5% or above right - less than a quarter of the paper, and obviously,only at level D to C level.
I was shocked.
I have found a link to a site called www.xtremepapers.com/
which gives you not just papers, but mark schemes and even how the examiners are supposed to mark questions and their comments!
Thus, I discovered that for french gcse they are allowed to accept all manner of incorrectly spelt and grammatically incorrect answers!

No wonder children get GCSEs in languages when they can't speak a word of it!
I had known for ages that KS3 sats were like this, as I downloaded them all from another website.
Whatever level your child does, there are the same questions - ie, level six in a 4-6 paper is the same as level 6 in a 6-8 paper.
Now I know this is how the Maths GCSE works to a certain extent - ie the Higher Tier paper consists of more than half lower tier work!
It is possible for a child who knows up to level 6 in Maths, for example, really well, to be able to be awarded a level 7 without having even attempted the work for it, if put in to a Level 5 to 7 or 6 to 8 test.
So a child that knows up to level C work in Maths could do the Higher Tier paper instead of the Foundation Tier, and if he or she knows the work inside out, be awarded a B without having done any B level questions or work.
I am pretty sure this is not just in Maths. It must be the pattern throughout.
So, I would say that yes, to get an A* probably still requires your child to be fairly competent (although the Maths questions at that level don't seem to be quite so long and complicated as I remember my O level ones being) and has to get above 81%, but any grade below that seems hardly worth the paper it's written on.
Sorry, but I think that's a fact.
I only had a grade 4 O level for Maths (when 1 to 6 was a pass as I am THAT old) but I would have absolutely NO trouble with a Higher Tier Maths GCSE now, and I am CERTAIN I would get an A*.
I home educate my son, we are at year 8 level now, about to move onto the Year 9 books, so I haven't done everything yet, but I have looked at the papers, and to be honest, HE could get a level C right now. If not a B. So it can't be THAT hard!
How many kids did we hear about in the days of O levels that got Maths O levels at age eleven? We hear about them all the time nowadays.
ARe they cleverer than we were? I don't think so.
ARe the exams easier? Take a look at them.

GCSEs are marked and the graded according to how well the individual student does.

O Levels were marked and then graded depending on how well everyone else did.

If you get 90% on a GCSE paper you get an A* grade, get 90% in an O Level and you could get anything from an A-C, depending on other peoples' marks.

Only the top 20% of students were entered for O Levels, the next 20% were entered for CSE.

When GCSEs were brought in A-C were the same as A-C O Level with grade 1 CSE being equivelant to a grade C, grades D - G were graddes 2- 5 CSE.

When GCSE was brought in the majority of people left school without any qualifications.

Are they easier - maybe, are they easier to pass, yes.

Properlush, your CSE experience was probably to do with exam board. I double entered French - C and Grade 1- (and English Language where I got an A and Grade 2).

Back to the comments by Minx, they are level 1 qualifications per the Government documents I was given, but I accept they may not allow you access to lots of level 2 courses if they are the poorer of the poor grades. What I was trying to illustrate is that although G to A* are passes they are, no way, passes which will ever be considered as equivilent. Able students get great passes and therefore access to courses no Grade D to G student can access.

So, are D to G grades 'fails' - they can be, but it depends on the students ability. If a school is turning around a CVA of 1025 but lots of D to G's they are not necessarily failing. Statistics show they have actually done very well. That is statistics, mind you, who knows what strange Labour qualification credits have been used to determine the CVA.

When I look at DD's maths and science (she's doing triple) it does seem to be quite similar to what I did in the dark ages of long ago for O level in terms of the course content. Although like a poster said above, she is due to retake some modules next week (originally taken in Y9) so that she can get A* rather than A. History is very different and I think the skills applied are more sophisticated than in O level and much less learning by rote. I find myself agreeing with Gove (help!) that the History coverage needs looking at through all key stages. English Lit - there seems to be much less reading than we were required to do, although I'm sure what my DD writes is superior to stuff I was putting to paper at that age. There is heaps more work in Art, which in my day had no course work whatsoever and you just did a 3 week project and an observational piece for O level. Of course, they can't be as challenging as O level because they take 11 (in DDs case) rather than 8 (me at a grammar school). But is that a bad thing? Keeping lots of subjects going is an advantage in my view.

What we often forget is that GCSEs replaced O levels and CSEs. CSE was graded 1-5 (I think) and O level passes A to C. CSE 1 was equivalent to pass O level (C). So that is in effect 8 grade boundaries that the GCSE was trying to replace with grades A to E. It's a little surprising that it took so long to come up with the whole A thing because clearly there was not sufficient differentiation at the top end. So my theory would be that A A and B are equivalent to the old O level A B C. So the current C grade that is so important in terms of Govt figures is actually not technically an O level pass equivalent at all.

There is no doubt that teaching has been refined in the past 30 years and that teachers and schools are much more accountable. This has its pros and cons, but I think results have been improved because teachers and pupils are much more aware of what they need to do to get better grades.

So, conclusion of ramble - I'd say you still need to be very clever to get lots of As. I know that my DD is working very hard (harder than I ever did) to get the As and As she has been predicted. I think the pupils are required to apply what they know rather than regurgitate what they know. Are modules so bad? Is it fair to measure 2 years work on 1-2 exams at the end?

I went to a school very like Passmore, back in the dark ages. In my year of 300 probably 30 got 5 O'level equivalents. I think 6 went onto University. Most people sat either CSE or O'levels.

MintAero, sufficient progress depends on what they came in on, doesn't it? If you have a very high percentage of SEN and the more academic pupils from the local area get sent elsewhere (I don't know the area but I suspect this to be the case) then those results could be actually very good.

I don't think you can equate O level grades with GCSE grades. Only approx 30 % of the population took O levels whereas 90% now take GCSEs. Of that 30% , about 10% achieved an A grade in O levels ( 3% of population). Last year 27% achieved achieved A or A grade in GCSEs ( 24% of population). IMO an A or A at GCSE is anywhere between an A to C O level grade hence why the universities find it hard to distinguish the average from the truly outstanding.

CVA should be a 1000 if children are making the progress they should. Passmores is 1025 which is quite high.
WhHavent read the ofsted but I don't think you get outstanding without being outstanding all round

In your opinion though, do you think those results spell satisfacotry progress? Would you be happy to have your child there? Wrt league tables I do not really understand them and all the different ways of looking at them, value added, cva etc means nothing to me as an ordinary parent trying to see through all the jargon.

I look at the results in a bit more detail, not the tables and from what i can see there were not many doing alot of academic subjects, loads of vocational ones, only one language and it all looks good in the tables, but pick it all apart to the bare bones and it is not very impressive reading.

BUT as you say, they must be heading in the right direction if they got an outstanding. What is the outstanding for though? Results, teacing, pastoral care or something else?