To wonder about CSEs v O Levels

[Bakance]

My partner has a brother much older than him - my DP is youngest in large, working class, Irish Catholic family. No one in their family has passed ever gone on to higher education - none educated beyond GCSE level.
Partner's eldest brother did 6 CSE exams big absolutely no O-levels at all - would he have been considered below average academic ability ?

I thought that O levels and CSE merged to form GCSE, with Higher GCSE = O level and foundation GCSE = CSE.

I can tell you aren't black then.

I did O levels.
My DD1 did GCSEs just before the recent reforms, so some controlled assessments, but terminal exams, no modular ones.
My DD2 didn't do GCSEs under the reformed 9-1 grades.

I personally don't think O levels were harder than what you would need to get 6-9s in the new GCSEs. They were different. GCSEs are meant to be (but actually aren't since reform) accessible to everyone, O levels were aimed at top 20% or so. Some things in maths have moved up to A level, but there are some things in the GCSE that I personally didn't do until A level.

I do think there is much more visibility now as to what is needed to get marks. It is much less of a 'dark art' than it was in the 80s

My kids are doing surds at GCSE which was the first subject we did at A level.

How are science subjects examined now? My maths A levels were traditional 2 exams at the end of 2 years, chemistry and biology were modular though.

GCSEs were introduced in 1987. The exam candidates of the previous year were used as guinea pigs to standardise/cross reference the mark scheme. My school was used for chemistry and history - for those subjects we took the O level or CSE and the GCSE. Some borderline people took all three!!! It was a lot of papers. As a result I have 3 different 16+ chemistry qualifications!

I was at high school in the 70s at a big fairly rough comprehensive
Everyone was streamed by ability for English and maths at age 11 after tests in these subjects
At 14 we chose options for other subjects and again you were split by ability
Approx top 20% did GCE O levels
bottom 10-20% did either no exams or concentrated on just a few including English and maths
Everyone else did CSEs - if you were at the top end of CSE level you could opt to sit both exams in some subjects but your parents had to pay for one of them
some people did a mixture eg DB did O levels in his strongest subjects which were maths and sciences but did CSE in English, French and history
I was in highest set so did all O levels and the standard to get an A grade was very high

If you were in highest set you also had the option to sit some exams a year early and then do a different subject for a year to gain more qualifications
eg I did maths then statistics so got 2 separate O levels
some people would do this to get 2 language O levels

I went to grammar school and did O levels, you could stay on at school until you were 18 and do A levels. If you went to secondary school then you did cses and had to leave at 16. The most O levels you could take at my school was 10, and it was very rare for someone to get all As.

It was a different time back then, I don't know anyone at that time who had a private tutor for the 11+ or O levels.

My parent who was born in the 50s, said that at secondary they were told that CSEs weren't worth the paper they were written on, and to do O levels. As a result they only did O (GCEs) levels. Much later on, GCSEs were created as a mix between the two, which of course meant it was an easier exam the O levels.

Blimey - what your parents were told was quite some criticism

@Calistan Science is terminal exams. Combined/dual award covers all 3 sciences, 6 exams and you end up with a double grade like 777 or 54.

Separate sciences 2 longer exams per science and you end up with individual grades for each.

You have to have done/seen practicals but no practical exams at GCSE for science.

There is a lot of content.

77 not 777

I did O levels in 1981. I think they were originally brought in in the 1950s for the grammar school, so the top 20-25% of the school population. Previously, the qualification was the School Certificate. In the sixties, there was a push for more young people to leave school with some qualifications so CSEs were brought in for secondary modern schools. O levels were GCE (General Certificate of Education} Ordinary levels. CSE stood for Certificate of Secondary Education. A levels are still GCE exams with the A standing for Advanced. This is why the merger was called GCSE; ie General Certificate of Secondary Education. The idea was that every school leaver would have qualifications, which were originally grades A-G, with all considered a pass. Of course, this could never be the case and employers and establishments of further education only considered grades A-C as pass grades, the same as the old O level. In any case, the new GCSE exams were soon split into different levels of difficulty, as had happened with the old CSEs.
There were many good initiatives brought in with the GCSEs, especially the idea of coursework but l still believe that O levels were more rigorous and went into the subjects in more depth. This was borne out by the introduction of AS levels (since abandoned) as it was found that there was a much wider gap between GCSE and A level than between O level and A level. I believe the AS level was a similar standard to the old O level.
whatever the case, you would have to go back 36 years to the last time the old exams were taken. It was a vastly different time and it must be remembered that only around 10% of eighteen year olds went on to higher education.

The other thing is that not everyone stayed on at school to take the exams. My mum was allowed to take O levels. My dad had to leave school to get a job as his dad was Ill and couldn’t work.

Ah you're the same age as my partner's bruv who also went to an inner London comp - with I would say a very predominantly or pretty much completely working class demographic

Bakance - I had a friend at college who had done O levels except for maths which was CSE. She wanted to go to teacher training college but they wouldn't accept the cse maths even though she got a grade 1, equivalent to O level grade C. She had to go to evening school and do maths O level.

*Whatever.

That seems very harsh of them

Thanks! I did O levels and probably am 'old' but not 'so old'. Bit rude!

I did a mix of CSE and O levels at my comp. You could 'double enter' in some subjects if you were borderline in some subjects. Inevitably most subjects had different content though. I did cse history but did so well I was allowed to do A level. Although I didn't get the brilliant teacher who encouraged me in cse so didn't do as well as I could have. She was an old school teacher, strict, passionate about her subject..inspirational. Head and shoulders above her colleagues.

Dh went to a pretty crappy London comp. He was in the second set and his class did cses. He got 1s in all of them but o levels were not even up for discussion. He then did a year of 6th form but I never could work
out exactly what he did (he can't remember and left to become a junior in a payroll dept).

His little sister was my year and we were the 3rd or 4th year of GCSEs. On paper she did better with her 5 Cs and a b and was accepted to do a levels but in reality he was more academically able.

no, he would have been considered slightly above average

The average in any subject was a low CSE

What were his grades? If 1 or 2, then those would still count as equivalent to GCSE passes today

CSE was like Foundation tier level gcse, so equivalent to O level grade C maximum.

Yep . But don't forget that in the 70s only 5-10% went to University . I had friends who went to teacher training college on 1 A level and a handful of O levels in the early 70s.
Not all exam boards graded A-F. I sat my O levels with Cambridge Exam Syndicate and the Grades were 1-9, with 1-6 being passes. So the reverse of today's assessment grades.