22% of students didn't get Grade 4 or higher in Maths or English this summer

Yes its ridiculous

So glad they can now do functional skills post 16

Kids with SEN also sit maths GCSE. Lots of them.

Yes I have they are freely avaible online. TBH they remind me of the 11+ work books I did with the DCs in yr 5 and as such seem a perfectly reasonable " minimum standard". As I said SEN excluded.

Why can't there be Maths and Advanced/ Further Maths at GCSE- so everyone takes a more general functional qualification which will be relevant and useful to all and informative for employers.
Then anyone who has Maths as their thing can choose to take a Further Maths or Advanced maths with all the theoretical stuff that tests those who achieve 7s, 8s and 9s who may want to continue studying maths or physics at A level

@Neurodiversitydoctor I'm not suggesting that it shouldn't be taught. But we need to accept that not everyone can do it. Have you ever actually seen the GCSE foundation paper? The questions are mostly not things that people are going to come across in real life. Unlike the Functional Skills qualifications, which are based around real life maths which many people would use at work.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on this, understanding probability is vital to so many areas of life, you need to understand area and ratio for building, sewing, gardening and DIY. The algebra is the same as what is tested in the 11+.

Just because a large proportion of the adult population are functionally inumberate can't be a reason not to educate our children.

Surely this proportion should not be a surprise. If everyone passed then it would render the system useless. Exams are, by definition, pass or fail. If someone does not reach the required standard then they should not pass. I am from the old O level generation. O levels were originally designed for grammar schools and the most academically able candidates. Grades A-C were pass grades. A grades were not given out lightly. Later on, CSEs were introduced with grades 1 to 5 being the passing grades. A grade 1 was the equivalent of a C grade at O level. Exams should be difficult and an achievement, otherwise what is the point of them? For those whose talents are not in the academic field, there should be other options and more practical courses. If there is one lesson that really needs to be learned, it is that academia and exams are not the be-all and end-all. There are many disaffected youngsters who are failed by this system. One size does not fit all.

@Neurodiversitydoctor your characterisation of the maths foundation paper is way off. Yes it includes percentages and basic operations, but it also includes difficult maths which I don't think most average adults could do. I'm talking about simultaneous equations, solving for x, nth term, confidence intervals, finding the area and volume of different shapes, calculating probability .... What makes it difficult for many isn't even the maths, it's the complex structure of the questions which often have multiple steps requiring you to use different types of maths within the same question.

I agree that the more academic and intelligent students should be able to do this, but there's a large minority who are totally flummoxed by some of these abstract concepts which they will never use during their working lives.

These students are then prevented from progressing to level 3 courses in subjects like childcare, hairdressing or farming because they can't understand algebra. It's a ridiculous waste of the skills of these young people.

I will always be shocked that people who went through the English education system don't know this. I can understand parents who didn't grow up with this but this has been in England forever. And even those, I don't understand why people don't get this after its been explained time and time again.

22% is standard. The school system is designed for a quarter/fifth of students to fail. Exams have always been this way, it's set up that a certain percentage (that only varies slightly from year to year) are put in each grade band.

That’s not why they got lower grades than 2022. It’s decided in advance which proportion of students will get a 4+ for each subject and in 2023 it was decided that this would be lower than 2022, roughly the same as 2019.

It has nothing to do with students’ performance, whether that was affected by covid, strikes, the collapse of the teaching profession or whatever. It was decided before they even sat the exams.

I thought the national average was around 50% achieving grade 4 or higher, so that sounds very good, only 22% not achieving it?

What a shocker. The pandemic massively disrupted their learning, then when they finally got back to class loads of their classmates had behaviour issues as a result of neglect etc during lockdowns, then many of the most experienced staff quit the profession, then there were strikes etc, and now children have lower grades? Colour me surprised.

What a shocker

the pandemic massively disr

Going back to the immediate aftermath of the school leaving age being raised to 16 in the late 70s, the splits in maths were vv roughly [i've rounded a lot] as follows:

sat O level - c 30% of kids
sat CSE - c 45% of kids
didn't sit either - c 25% of kids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Secondary_Education

Today's results look pretty similar to me - these days we're way more serious about 'academic' education for all, but the underlying ability distribution won't have changed one iota.

I think we should have maths and English assessment at 16 so that support can be targeted up to 18 to those who need it to reach the standard and those who don't can continue working on it, looking at higher level study or just more practical uses like personal finance and practical English. We don't need these huge swathes of exams at 16. Just streamline at 16 into different areas and have exams for 5 or so subjects at 18.

That's not correct. Almost all European countries have a big assessment between the ages of 14- 16 that essentially pick out what your options are moving forward. Whether that's polytechnic type education (UK is one of the few European countries to get rid of these), vocational or purely academic. The expectation is you carry on in education through to age 18 as a min, but what that looks like is decided between ages 14-16. Sometimes even younger (Germany).
What is unique about the UK is that because the leaving age was always 16, GCSEs are seen as the 'final' exams. Other European countries set a % pass mark for each year and it's rare for their final exams to be marked on grade boundaries like the UK.
The other thing that's very very unusual and I don't believe exists outside of the UK, is different exam boards. Final exams are normally set by the government and all kids sit and are marked the same one.

I have a yr 12 Dd so well aware of what the GCSE timetable looks like.

Anyway the UK is a bit of an outlier in doing some sort of summative assesmet at 16. Perhaps Rishi is right and we just have exams at 18 giving those who struggle another 2 years to reach the expected standard without feeling lie failures, I guess the question is then what do you do if they don't hit that standard ?

I did say NT TBF, so pythagoras ? Area and ratio are what I have seen. Without SEN I can't see that as an enormous ask.

They may have 3 maths papers, but they are not usually on the same day. Any decent educational establishment will have coached them in exam etiquette and technique. Unless people are suggesting that 40% of 16yo have an undiagnosed SEN ?

Yes I think it's the sheer volume of questions and exams they have to do. They may be able to do the 4/5 mark questions, and have that knowledge, but at the end of 3 papers for maths alone, added to all the other exams they are doing, you are testing their stamina more than their knowledge and ability.

No we aren't.
But that is not a grade 4 or 5 question.

Kids have to be able to do the grade 4/5 questions at the end of the paper. The ones where they have to know a trig value off by heart, or know how to find angles in a polygon, or use parallel line rules. And they have to have the time and stamina left by the time they get there.

You may be a 'Neurodiversitydoctor' but you clearly have little understanding of how some children can struggle.

Plus remember at y11 they have to do the maths exams embedded in a whole bunch of other exams. They may be exhausted from the sheer marathon.

Maths example below : are we really saying this is too hard for NT 16yos ? Jesus wept.

I did ask earlier but seriously have any of you seen a foundation level mayhs GCSE paper. It is not for those fitting an " academic mold" any reasonably bright 12 year old could do it and some brighter 9 or 10 year olds. If 40% of our 16yo olds are not at that level after 12 years of compulsory education, we really need to take a hard look at what ( if anything) they are being taught not lower the bar.

And, just for good measure, if you leave college at the end of y13 but haven't got your maths or English but still want to pursue it, you fall into a funding black hole for a year. Too young for adult education, but have to be on a full time course for 16-19 education.

I think GCSE retakes should be offered in y12 for those who want, but then functional skills offered in y13.

@artemis9 there will never be 100% kids passing. Even if all were able to. The way grade boundaries work make that impossible.