Underwhelming GCSEs

It’s never been easy to coast and get an A*/A/B 0r 7/8/9. It’s always been easy for a bright child to get a C or 4, but to get to get a higher grade has required some effort. There have always been kids who for
some reason think it’s uncool to try hard, so tell everyone they’ve done no work , even when they have.

@AmyandPhilipfan couldn’t agree more. I’m a teacher and was just saying to my husband the other day that when i rule the world kids at school will be able to sit level 0+ and 1 courses at school, instead of being forced to dolevel 2s, then going to college and being able to study the above, it’s bonkers.

I have a ds2 coaster. I'm sad I'm going to have to push him this year.

My son got mostly 5s a couple
of 6s in 2023 which were lower than he was predicted but he did the bare minimum and the more I went on at him the more he resisted. His school surprised me as they seemed to drum it into the pupils that they only needed 5s which my son really clung onto and he almost missed out on studying English Lit because of this. (Had a remark) My daughter gets top grades but she revises hard, she works completely different to my son and she’s very competitive whereas my son isn’t. He wouldn’t care that his friend got a 9 and he didn’t, however my daughter would and she’d try to achieve that too.

Why is he allowed to study below GCSE level aged 16, but at 14 had to study at GCSE level and try to work towards that grade 4? And not just him but so many kids who were not yet at that ability. Why can 16 year olds do Level 1 courses but 14 year olds have to do Level 2 courses?

Oh yes @AmyandPhilipfan I do so agree. My DS1 has LD and failed to pass English multiple times - but took L1 and L2 functional skills (L2 is same level as GCSE grade 4) and passed. Why he could not sit these at school I do not know. It's not the school's fault - they are forced to enter DC who won't even gain a 1. I've seen it multiple times - it's not a huge % of pupils but for them it leaves them feeling they have failed and in some cases I have known it lead to illness and worse.

@smashburgers I am lolling that you used Smash Hits (I used to work there!) for your coursework but I think your story is a pretty good explanation of why coursework was done away with!

I coasted in the second year that GCSEs were set and didn't really revise but it was in the days of coursework so English Lang/Iit and humanities were 100% coursework, Geography was 50% and maths and science were 25%

Much easier than just exams and I came out with AAAAAABBBC (c in physics which I absolutely hated!) (A* didn't exist then) and most of my cohort in top sets achieved similar with little effort.

Most coursework in things like maths was sent back to improve with pointers given and we were all given printouts of what humanities coursework should look like from the year before to get a high grade(!)

One piece of English coursework I copied from an old Smash Hits magazine, just changed the name of the people
In it to current (at the time) pop stars.... another I got an A level friend to write - loads of people's parents had input.

Even languages were easier with prep into which questions would be asked in the oral and aural exams.

Absolute agree! 👍 My DS didn't do too badly, but because of a near miss of a pass at Eng Lang is now doing another year of Level 2 coursework, despite getting a decent number of passes on everything else (4s and 5s) I am so proud of what he has achieved, but he feels like a failure because he is essentially "repeating" Y11 whilst his peers have all advanced. The outcomes and options are not great for those who can't get those magic 4s on English Lit and Maths. It feels like they are set up to fail from the start.

@AmyandPhilipfan

I really agree with thus. Something better needs to happen for all the students who are passing a level 1 qualification, which is what those 1, 2 and 3 are. So they can come out feeling thet passed level 1 and can move onto level 2 rather than I failed school.

My youngest is at a special school which is slightly different, but finding qualifications he can do rather than coming out with nothing is hard. The functional skills english and maths is well established but there isn't such clear level 1 courses for other subjects.

My son took GCSE's in June. Was in middle set for maths and sitting at a '3' in his mock. He got a 3 in his gcse. So I presume the group below his didn't hit that all important 4.
He managed to pass others,it's just such a shame there is so much pressure to pass these days,its horrendous.

I hugely coasted and did very little work and got 1xA 3xBs and 7xCs. Bit me on the arse in my as levels and I had to resit everything in my ALevel year to pull it all up to Bs

The context in which they are educated is also so different to when I did GCSEs 30 odd years ago. Then, really the only resources available were the teacher, the text book and a couple of past papers. Now there is so much extra they can access in self study, that I think GCSEs are much more like A levels or higher courses now, and it is the ability and motivation to work at that level that sets the majority of grade 8 and 9 students apart. My DS got 99999988887, but accessed so much ‘stuff’ outside of the classroom / set homework.

Wrt a third of kids not achieving the magic 4 grade, I really think our current system massively lets down a large amount of kids. My 16 year old has minor learning difficulties and was never going to get grade 4 in anything at GCSE. The fact he achieved three 3s on top of his 1s and 2s is practically a miracle. He's just started a vocational course at college and has been put into the Level 1 course. This is fine and he should be able to easily cope. Then next year hopefully he'll move onto the Level 2 course. Which is meant to be equivalent to Grade 4 GCSE. So at 18 he'll have a GCSE equivalent qualification.

Why is he allowed to study below GCSE level aged 16, but at 14 had to study at GCSE level and try to work towards that grade 4? And not just him but so many kids who were not yet at that ability. Why can 16 year olds do Level 1 courses but 14 year olds have to do Level 2 courses? There should be something like a Level 1 diploma in General Education for the children who are unlikely to get to grade 4 in GCSEs. Then at least they feel they leave school with something rather than it being 5 wasted years if they fail to get to grade 4. It could be assessed just in class work throughout the two years and maybe scored as pass (just made the level), merit (securely made the level) and distinction (totally aced it). I just feel like it's madness that under the current system a third of kids are leaving school feeling they have failed.

Ah so it's a third nationwide, I thought the poster meant per school.

I see now.

Because they want their kids to pass.

Because without the pass you have fewer options at college/6th form, and you are destined to retake for the next 2 years.

I think its media reporting made you feel this. Even the couple of covid years where top grades were a little higher, it still wasn't the case that children could coast and get all 7, 8 and 9.

So why do schools bother trying to ensure every kids gets a pass when it is a set up to ensure a third never do?

It's a sham.

I don't think you can coast and come out with 8s and 9s.
I think to get 8s and 9s you have to be bright and work hard.

I do suspect a bright student with a good memory could work hard /pay attention in lessons, attend school revision sessions, and get 6s without loads of extra in a number of subjects. Though then they could well come unstuck in A levels as they won't have learned how to revise.

I did O levels and I did very well - but I am pretty sure I also worked hard, don't recall coasting tbh.

I also don't recognise the OP's narrative of coasting to come out with top GCSEs. No one I know thinks that's how it works - including my two more able DC. Both achieved good results but in both cases, they worked hard to get their top grades. Like @newmum1976 says, with subjects they were less bothered about (DD maths, DS2 Eng lit and Spanish) they for sure did less work - and came out with 6s. Fine for what they needed for sure. But not top grades. They had to work for their 8s and 9s.

My child got 9s and a couple of 8s in the subjects they worked extremely hard for. The 2 subjects they didn’t really focus on they got 6s. I think your assumption is right and the new GCSEs require a huge amount of work and great memory. We’ve heard of lots of children getting less than predicted this year.

Reminds me of when Michael Gove said we needed all kids to be better than average. The system is set up so there's always kids who fail. The grades are a bell curve

Mine worked really hard and self-educated alongside school. Got mine 9s and one 8. I think it is pretty hard these days. Not just knowledge but knowing how to answer effectively.

I wouldn't say my child worked particularly hard (inner city comp). But he worked smart and did lots of past papers and went to all the extra sessions laid on by teachers. He came out with 9999888887. His sats suggested he would get all 7s.

The reformed GCSEs have an awful lot to cover in a short space of time. Some subjects, like Maths, ideally need practice and consolidation along the way; others, like Eng Lang, have very specific mark schemes that can trip up even those who think they are very articulate on paper. So the capacity to 'wing it and pull it out of the bag at the last minute' is actually very limited.

We also do have to factor in the effects of Covid. Those who sat GCSEs in June were in Y7 and Y8 when lockdowns occurred - important years in terms of getting to grips with the secondary school environment. Some students will have recovered from that hiatus, others will not really have done so.

The fluctuations of grade boundaries, syllabus scope and examination approach in 2020, 2021 and 2022 will also have made teachers' lives very difficult in trying to assess whether students are working to certain grades and so manage expectations, I'd imagine.

As someone starting med at uni this month and who got good GCSE 9 grade 9s an 8 and 1 grade 7 aswell as 3A* at A level the way I see it is hard work will be rewarded for sure but also working smart means its much easier.

You can get away with less work at GCSE for sure but it's still not easy to get a 9