in thinking that in a few years time it'll be impossible to fail an 'A' level?

[BarmyArmy]

A level pass rate up

"The pass rate for A-levels rose for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, up from 97.5% in 2009."

The problem (for I see it as that, rather than evidence of increasing 'hard work') began under the Tories, when they introduced the GCSE in 1986.

Traditional 'bell curve' grade allocation was replaced with marks awarded to a particular 'standard', meaning it is perfectly possible for everyone to pass, or indeed everyone to gain the same grade - depending on where the grade boundaries lie.

Under the old bell curve system, grades were allocated according to the percentile bands in which you lay - i.e. the top 20% of any given intake received an A, the next a B and so on.

What do people think?

Coolma - how do you know you would have an A in that paper? Have you seen the mark scheme and grade boundary document? I can't find it to mark mine.

Vik Groskop got an A* in English literature for Ancient Starlight and anyone else interested or who has been following the story.

Back when O'levels were either pass or fail (around 1956 onwards until ?) - how high was the pass mark? Not sure if A'levels were similar?

Hi BarmyArmy,

While I do think that everyone who has got good results today should be applauded, I also agree a little with your view that it depends on the year in which you took exams, due to the apparent grade inflation over the last few decades.

However, I'm afraid for me that also includes you, as I took O levels - which I like to convince myself were harder than GCSEs. As I got very similar grades to you - except I got 5As at O levels :) - do you therefore think it's OK if I think my qualifications are significantly better than yours?

Well done to everyone who got an A* today!!

Barmy's question "in a few years time will it be impossible to fail an 'A' level?" is quite different to the discussion of the distribution of higher grades.

It should be impossible to fail an A2.

Students start by studying for AS - if they fail that then (unless mitigating circumstances) schools will not normally progress them to A2. This is because A2 is harder and uses the AS marks within it, so passing an A2 with a failed AS is difficult and allowing a student to continue down a route to failure is not in the student's best interest. Therefore a lot of the old A level failures are "weeded out".

Some schools take a harder line and expect a D or C at AS to progress - again because the A2 is harder. You can of course "fail" the A2 exams but on aggregate gain an A2 based on the total of your AS and A2 exams - this is the least that students and schools should accept.

Alternative pathways may be offered to students who perform badly at AS (e.g. further AS courses or non-A level vocational qualifications).

It may be (though I am not sure) that a student may reject a failed A2 level in preference for a grade at AS.

It is also expensive to put candidates in for exams which they are likely to fail and a waste of the school and students' time. Hopefully schools spend enough time disuading students from beginning A level courses that they are not suitable candidates for.

The result of this is that students should not fail at A2 but also that low A2 grades are not as valuable as low older A level grades.

We teach translation skills at as and alevel in mfl. Translation into English is a skill I teach year 11 higher level students although it is not tested at exam level. Gsce mfl foundation level is quite frankly a piece cake for a well educated degree level person who had been taught that mfl at school. My foundation level students don't think it is a piece of cake. But they probably would not have been entered 20 years ago . They would have been dismissed as being too thick and entered for apprenticeships. Tsk fancy making opportunities for all to study languages. Cos they all can speak English abroad miss don't they so what's the point ......

isodeone would be interested to know why you think that it is important - there is an argument that says that some studetns would be better off doing an aprenticeship and learning a useful trade from which they can make money than by learning a mfl. They can always learn one later in life if they choose to but I'm not sure that forcing them to when teenagers is such a good idea.

This -

www.gcsemathspastpapers.com/gcse-maths-past-papers-june-2009-paper-4.htm:

Is a damn site easier than the cse I took in 1980!

I think that if someone is going to spend 2 years of their life doing something, they should get something from it. I think the grading system now is much fairer than the old system.

You actually do have to know quite a lot to get an E grade - you have to score over 40% of UMS (and there is a certain amount of statistical adjustment when allocating UMS).

Back in the day, a lot of kids left school for good at 16. Perhaps today's E-graders are those kids. They have achieved well for them and that achievement should be celebrated too.

If you think A-levels are easy, try doing one!

loopyloops - 'snooping'?

Actually, the journals were introduced, and are to be consulted regularly by the chain of command, in order to give the guys an outlet to vent their feelings. No attention is paid to any bitching or moaning or even any 'rude' remarks about the training staff...other than to ensure that all is okay and, if not, to speak to the recruits and find out what is wrong. It's a useful way of spotting 'red flags'.

It's called exercising a 'duty of care' and is laid down as an example of good practice for instructors by the Director of Army Training and Requirement, following on recommendations made after the Inquiry into the deaths of soldiers at Deepcut, which was just next door to us at Pirbright.

But your irritation at my line of argument clouded your judgement of the anecdote I recounted, hence your presuming limited success in my part etc etc.

islandhopper - of course you can gloat at your better marks than mine! Well done to you. This was never abouit my grades in relation to anyone else's - other people chose to ask for my academic qualifications.

Yet again, people are choosing to attack the person putting forward a point of view, instead of addressing the issues they raise.

'Twas ever thus on AIBU!

I did my exams in the early 80s and the Physics and Chemistry ones consisted of a multiple choice paper and a written answer paper. The Maths one might have been the same, I can't quite remember.

Multiple choice isn't an easy option. If the range of answers are numbers from a calculation, you still have to do the calculation to pick the right one.

Teaching is better nowadays than it was then. We don't have rote learning nowadays. It is all very interactive and a two way process. The teacher continually assesses the pupils' learning, in every lesson, several times. Students know what they have to do and have learning targets so they can take responsibility for their own learning.

The old way was fine for clever kids, who could just listen to something and retain it. But that failed the not so clever kids. At least nowadays, we make the system so that everyone has a chance to do their best.

I don't think they are getting easier and even if they are, I'm still extremely proud of DS who got AAAB at AS level today. People still do fail as when we went to his school there were a few students who had got Us.
Very sad that every year the kids that have done so well get kicked in the teeth and get told its so much easier

isoldone I was referring to translation not being relevant at GCSE, rather than AS/A2. I'm also a teacher of MFL.

It depends who you let take A'levels. Our school lets pretty much anyone take A'levels - even if they don't have a C in GCSE English/Maths. Naturally, some of our kids then fail at the end (or repeat 6th form until they're 25. Well, 20). Lots of our students shouldn't do A'levels, but they don't know what else to do and they don't want to miss out on teh experience of 6th form. Not only have some of our kids failed some of their A'leves today, but they have the humiliation of being told that the A'levels they've failed are a piece of piss!

So yes, while we have comprehensive schools, there will be alway be kids that fail. Off now before I rant about private schools.

The thing is though, relatively very few people did O level physics. Most chose one or two science subjects at most and only the people inclined that way tended to go for Physics (and if you are inclined that way it's all fairly easy). Now everyone does at least some Physics GCSE papers - not all do the full separate Physics qualification of course, but virtually everyone does Physics within Core Science and most within Additional Science too, so obviously the papers need to be more accessible - it's a bad example to have chosen (remember too that 8 was a typical number of O levels whereas 11 or more GCSEs is quite common - doing a broader range of subjects you wouldn't expect quite the same depth).

When you think how many more resources children & teachers have at their fingertips thanks to the internet & comprehensive revision guides & interactive learning today and of course the opportunity to take exams in small chunks and retake when advantageous it's not at all surprising many more achieve high grades - exams are not necesarily easier.

I do think though that in some subjects (maths, physics for eg) modern GCSEs/A levels are somewhat easier than they used to be in terms of syllabus coverage, but it's possibly not a big effect and today isn't really the time to be analysing it - children have no choice in which era they sit their exams and their achievements should be celebrated.

"I think that if someone is going to spend 2 years of their life doing something, they should get something from it."

wow. If that does not sum up today's culture of entitlement then I don't know what does.

BarmyArmy,

Sorry, not trying to gloat or attack the person - apologies if I worded it badly. Was just trying to point out that, while on the face of it we have quite similar grades at O/GSCE and A level, would you agree that because I took O levels not GCSEs that my grades are worth more than yours? After all, that's what you are saying to those younger than you.

BarmyArmy,

Sorry, not trying to gloat or attack the person - apologies if I worded it badly. Was just trying to point out that, while on the face of it we have quite similar grades at O/GSCE and A level, would you agree that because I took O levels not GCSEs that my grades are worth more than yours? After all, that's what you are saying to those younger than you.

Thanks Cortina, I was trying to find out what mark she got.

islandhopper - yes, that is what I am saying, by and large. Different exams testing different things but no enough difference for me to try and rationalise a way of explaining a better result for me!

Well I did my A levels in 1986 (AAB) My daughter passed hers today A*AA

HERS WERE NOT EASIER.

Different? Yes The modular style is a totally different ball game to 'pass or fail in one hideous exam' method I experienced but I honestly do not think that the Maths A level she passed today, or the chemistry she passed today was the slightest bit easier than the exams I passed.
Biology seemed pretty similar to be honest:)

On top of that she had the stress of trying to get a place to read medicine.. FAR FAR more difficult than when I was applying to university; the competition is far greater than it ever was.

So to insult all the bright, hard working (my god she worked hard) kids who are celebrating their successes today is just plain ignorant, and unfair.

Personally I'm proud of all of them.. and I'm going to watch my daughter leave for Uni to become a doctor knowing that whatever the system is, however they grade and mark, she IS deserving of her place in a highly competitive world!

sloping off to open the wine bottle and celebrate....:)

I do think that the education system seems more geared up towards teaching students to pass exams rather than necessarily teaching them the subject; at least perhaps more so than it once was?

I certainly felt it was like that when I did my GCSEs (2001) and A Levels (2003). There was a lot of emphasis about looking at the specification and exactly what you were going to be tested on, practicing past papers and learning exam technique. You focused on what you expected to be asked about in the exam and didn't waste too much time "reading around the subject" except where that might be able to get you a few extra points to show depth/width of knowledge. It was a good system to get you the high grades but didn't do a whole lot to inspire a love of the subject or gaining knowledge and understanding for its own sake.

I got an A in GCSE French but even on the day of the exams I wouldn't have claimed to have been "taught the French language" - I'd been taught to pass a French GCSE exam and that was that. Needless to say I don't remember a whole lot of it now!

I would agree that it is useful to have exams that reflect what a student can do - like passing a driving test shows that a learner can do X, Y and Z successfully, rather than just arbitrarily passing the best three learners each day. But I also agree it is difficult to distinguish between students when a big chunk of the top performers all have "AAA*" - it just pushes things like university application boards into demanding ever more extra curricular activity, volunteering, work experience and so forth until the poor students need to be working 24/7 from the start of secondary school to get their UCAS forms up to scratch!

The thing is, students are judged on their exam results (vast numbers of A level students missing out on a university place), and schools are judged on exam results (league tables) and teachers are judged on exam results (performance management), so when you work in a system like that, you have to maximise the students' chances of high grades. I talk around my subjects because I love them and know lots about them, but in that last term, we are focused on results.

I was thrilled for my students today, really thrilled, but part of me was also thinking "positive residual for my performance management".

Entitlement, LOL.

No, it's being rewarded for hard work, achievement and learning.

You don't work for nothing, do you? Or do you think people who accept money for work are doing it out of a sense of entitlement?