Scrapping GCSEs

I found an o level paper from 1984, and my top set (so the ones who would have done o level) would have been fine, apart from the question asking them to draw and label the central surface of an earthworm. They would have wondered where the questions were on gene therapy though, and genetic engineering, and neuroscience.

I think the only good thing about this is having a single exam board. This is the norm in many European countries including my own (Netherlands) and I don't understand why the UK's commercialised race to the bottom system was ever allowed to develop.

The rest of it is more of Gove's ideaological Fifties fetishist ill-thought-out rubbish. What we need is to do bring teaching and exams in vocational subjects up to speed so that these are valuable and useful in developing skills and careers, making them as valuable as an 'academic' GCSE.

As for the accusations of dumbing down - I had a look at a section of a 1985 O level maths paper as reprinted in the Guardian here. My Yr6 DD could happily pass both the O level and the higher level GCSE paper - neither seems more difficult than the other. Based on this (and obviously I have not looked at a large body of exam papers) I'm not convinced that GCSE maths is easier than O levels were when they were scrapped.

What really concerns me is the emphasis on having one final year exam - it means that children who are good at cramming will do well. It does not mean that they will have a more in-depth education, not at all. When I went through the Dutch system in the 80s, we had modular A-levels - exams set by the school accounted for half the mark, the centrally-set final exams accounted for the other half. On the whole, the school-set exams were much harder, in order to prepare us for the central ones.

Cramming alone would not get you a good mark. Because of the modular system, you would not know what subjects would come up in the exam - the curriculum was enormously broad and deep, and the modular exams would tackle one or two at a time in depth. The knowledge ended up embedded far enough that I was genuinely able to apply it at University. It is perfectly possible to have modular exams and topic-based teaching and have academic rigour - as long as the number of resits is limited (I agree with Gove on this and am that it is not so already.

My DS has just finished his GCSEs this summer. I must admit that before he started high school I was a bit about the GCSE exams having taken O and A levels myself and being conditioned into thinking that they were the best thing since sliced bread.

After seeing him have to work his butt off these last two years with exams every five minutes and constant continual assessments, targeted continually and pushed to the limit I feel he worked damned harder than I did.

He will deserve every high grade he will (hopefully) get and I feel sorry for the DCS that have worked so hard that people say they are "easy" and "dumbed down". They are so better prepared to take these exams than I ever was. In fact I don't think we had any prep at all - not even past papers. We just studied the course for two years and took the exam. Some people coasted for eighteen months, worked for the last three or four and then took the exams. The teachers never took revision sessions and basically couldn't have cared less whether we passed or failed - and I went to a very good state comp. I am so grateful to my DS's teachers who have really gone out of the way to help all the students.

The current exams are perfectly fine and constant fiddling with the system just creates confusion for students, parents, teachers, universities and employers.

Speaking also as a HOD, I have to agree that I am also weeping at my desk.

We have had change after change which, in my opinion, will have little positive impact upon the outcomes for our pupils. We have worked damn hard to accommodate these changes and ensure that our pupils have the best possible outcome.

How can a system which divides pupils based upon statistics at an early age be right? How can you label children so easily? I teach pupils who just suddenly get it in Year 11 and yet they might already have been entered for the lower paper. I've had pupils who have had a statistical target of a D and through damn hard work have come out with an A. That wouldn't be possible in Gove's brave new world.

The posters who have said GCSE's are easy are wrong. I teach History in a good comprehensive and despite what people may say, it takes real hard work and a certain level of intellectual capability to achieve a grade C. It is not something that can just be magicked out of thin air, walk into the exam with no revision and you have no chance.

The worst thing about all of this is that Gove just randomly comes out with these things. How is it right that we, those are responsible for educating young people, because that's what they are, not statistics, find out from the BBC website what is going on in the world of education.

I cannot put into words what an arse the man is.

I am all for change when change is well thought out, consulted upon and will have a positive impact.

Noble - there are specific non-calculator method marks on IGCSE papers, largely for fraction arithmetic questions.

One exam board's IGCSE is v similar in diificulty to GCSE (but with slightly different topics) and another's rather harder...

I teach English, and I don't think there is a lack of focus on linguidtic analysis. These are the criteria for A/A* pieces of work in relation to analysis:
Candidates
show appreciation of how writers use language to
achieve specific effects;
make assured exploration and evaluation of the
ways meaning, ideas and feeling are conveyed
through language, structure and form;
at the highest level, make assured analysis of
stylistic features.

there are 2 other assessment areas as well, but as you can see it is impossible to get a high grade without being analytical. THis is WJEC by the way.

I agree with whoever said schools asking for A orA* for students to take A level are looking to improve their results. It is possible to get good grades at A level for candidates with C or above - they have to work and the teacher has to teach, but it is more than possible.

I did O levels in 1974.
My 16 year old has just finished GCSEs.
It was normal back then to take 8 or 9 subjects at most. Today's pupils often take 12 or more.

I have to say that the Maths I did in 1974 was infinitely easier then as was the English Language, Geography and much of the science.
French was much more rigorous, we had to speak and understand the language and English Lit was also more demanding.

And whatever anyone says about the current GCSEs I have a very able and motivated 16 year old who has just worked his socks off over the last two years and I could weep for him when people go on about dumbed down easy exams.

On top of this my DS2 is in year 9 and will end up with the worst of both worlds harder GCSEs and new style A levels.

Evidence based decision making is NOT a Gove strong point.

I just looked at some iGCSE papers for maths and was quite surprised to find them really no more challenging than GCSE. There were a few more topics covered which we don't do, functions, set theory and very basic calculus but the questions weren't hard.

I was very surprised to see that calculators were allowed for everything. Presumably iGCSE candidates have time to learn basic set theory because they can completely neglect pen and paper methods. I wonder how their mental arithmetic holds up.

We know what we are doing for the next two years. We have worked incredibly hard to prepare first ourselves and now our students for the changes. And as I don't know what the status of the iGCSE will be in the Brave New World, I'm not changing again until I actually get the details!

I like practical assessments in Science though. They make sense to me, scientifically...

ooh a hod! TFMadonna, would the iGCSE give you some stability for the next few years? Sorry have no idea if there is BTEC equivalent...

I am a HoD. I have been one for two years. In two years we have had the introduction of a new GCSE specification and a new BTEC spec, held our year 9 early starters in limbo owing to the announcement about a move to linear and subsequent changes to the new GCSE specification, which is therefore valid for only one year), have heard that the BTEC has changed and therefore needs to be re-written, two years after it was introduced. We were already braced for A level changes and the curriculum review, and I was trying to work out what the letter from Gove to the Expert Review panel, which referred to the removal of NC levels, would actually mean for us. Now this. Yes, I want to to lay my head on a desk and weep.

Maybe GCSE's do need a shake up, though some (Art & Design for instance) seem to be a lot more rigourous than the O Levels they replaced.

I have major worries that there will be chaos for the first few years sitting the new exams - and that it will be hellish for the teachers putting them through them.

That said, I sat the last year of O Levels, but having taken a gap year, I was at university with people who'd sat the first GCSE's & it didn't seem to have traumatised them. Then again, most had been to private schools or grammars (more so than in previous years as it happens), so perhaps then (as now) they were more likely to be cushioned against the upheaval.

I fear that most of the chaos will be in comprehensive schools, where there's a wider range of attainment, and that it will hit the middling pupils worst.

just saw lizbee said what I said (but far more eloquently!)

I'm worried about the speed of change. How on earth are they going to get this through the government processes, write new curricula and the new exams, test the new exams and communicate the changes effectively in time for schools to implement these changes? I can imagine Heads of Departments across the country weeping with their heads on the tables with the thought of this.

Change does need to happen, I don't believe the system is rigorous enough at the moment, but this is far too quick a pace.

Biology hasn't been essential for medicine since at least the late 80s (so for people who did O levels first time around).

A levels are not only for students who are taking their academic studies further. When I did my A levels (1989), about half of my sixth form went on to university. There are more now I suspect, because tertiary education has expanded.

We have students who do A levels because at 16, they do not have firm career plans, want to stay in education and spend two years studying something they are interested in. I don't think that is a bad thing. And in fact, there will be more and more of them as participation in post 16 education is being widened.

If the old system was so good, why did the thatcher government abandon them? They were designed for a very different education system to now. It's children would do CSEs.

In the 1970s, yes, I know, prehistoric times, I knew a medic who got an E for Physics A level, and was offered a place when he reapplied in his re-sit year. Without having to re-sit. [Re-sits were not uncommon then, but As were very.] So at some time in the past, you could even go to Med School with an E. Now most can't go even with 4A*s, and Maths A level is considered by many to be easier than Physics, which it wasn't then. And Biology which was essential then has become not so, now. At least Chemistry has retained its core status, but at a much higher grade requirement.

I don't even try to understand it. Thankfully universities will work out how to adjust their requirements to suit the day.

State schools have access to iGCSEs now. They get to choose whether to offer them. I can't see any good reason academically not to switch to them for the sciences, some MFLs, English and Maths, but someone will probably come along and explain why.

Over half of the exams my Y11 DD has sat have been IGCSE exams. These have been just as hard as my old O levels were.

They was no coursework and no modules. It was all linear with end of course exams.

So tougher exams are available already- but maintained schools in the UK are not allowed to sit them.

You used to be able to go to Uni with grade Es. When I took A levels back in 1991, I only needed Ds and Es for a degree in teaching, Business Studies also accepted Ds and Es. It was only the academic subjects such as History and English Literature that required Cs.

An dif you only managed a C at GCSE, despite working reasonably hard, wouldn't you find the jump too A level far too taxing?

I know pupils hwo have got an A* at GCSE, only to find the jump quite a surprise. Those who only got a C must surely have no aptitude for the subject?

But Fallen what is the point of an E at A level?
Surely A levels are for those who are taking their academic studies further?

Schools that insist on students getting an A or A* at GCSE to do A level are doing so because they want to make their A level results look better. A levels go from A to E. Someone who gets a B at GCSE should generally fall somewhere in that range, and if they don't, then schools perhaps should look to their teaching.

C grade GCSE maths includes stuff like simultaneous equations, plotting quadratic and cubic graphs, expanding double brackets, Pythagoras, area and circumference of circles and so on. I'm impressed at a 10 year old who can do these but I wouldn't label them 'basic maths skills'.