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Original poster

To wonder about CSEs v O Levels

234 replies

Bakance · 05/03/2023 18:43

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 ?

OP posts:
Nanny0gg · 07/05/2024 19:07

Bakance · 05/03/2023 18:58

Now this is what really surprises me. I expected O levels to cater for top 50% but top 20%?? They really creamed off the very top didn't they ?

Show quote history

They did.

And quite a lot (I believe) of some of today's A-levels were studied at O-level back in my day

And this is also why not so many went to university

StMarieforme · 07/05/2024 19:07

AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 05/03/2023 18:59

Anyone at school when there were O levels and CSEs, I was, is so old now that who cares what people thought about them?

No one defined by an exam they took 40 years ago

As PPs have said it was a different world

I do object to the term 'so old'!

Of an age would do.

I am not So Old.

Nanny0gg · 07/05/2024 19:10

Mamamia7962 · 05/03/2023 19:22

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.

You could only stay on if you passed English and maths and your A level subjects

Fail maths and you were out

MenopauseSucks · 07/05/2024 19:42

Back in the late 50s, my parents didn't just do A Levels in Sixth Form, they did S Levels as well!!!

ShanghaiDiva · 07/05/2024 19:46

MenopauseSucks · 07/05/2024 19:42

Back in the late 50s, my parents didn't just do A Levels in Sixth Form, they did S Levels as well!!!

S levels were still around in the 1980s. I took s level German and English.

Rainydayinlondon · 07/05/2024 19:47

vestanesta · 05/03/2023 19:38

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.

Oh yes! I remember people doing “one year sixth”!!

MrsAvocet · 07/05/2024 19:48

MenopauseSucks · 07/05/2024 19:42

Back in the late 50s, my parents didn't just do A Levels in Sixth Form, they did S Levels as well!!!

S levels were around until 2001.

Anonymouseposter · 07/05/2024 19:50

Daisymay2 · 05/03/2023 19:46

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.

Show quote history

I did O levels with the Joint Matriculation Board and the grades were also 1-9 with 1-6 being a pass and 7-9 a fail. I posted this on another thread and met with disbelief.

bruffin · 07/05/2024 19:52

I remember my teacher saying back in the 70s that 5 olevel passes put you in the top 15% educationally.

Ilovemyshed · 07/05/2024 20:29

O levels were for the top set students and CSEs were for the less bright.

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 20:45

haven't rtft but this is my experience of those exams. I took O levels in 1984 and only the top 3 sets sat them the other 7 sets either sat CSEs or nothing. I also believe you could only apply to universities (termed the Russell group ones nowadays) if you had O levels. Polytechnics however would also accept CSEs. Also when my sister sat GCSEs 2 years later and you could for each subject get the old Olevel grading A-Fs and the CSE grading 1-4. If you got A-C you also got a CSE grade 1 certificate

Lisbeth50 · 07/05/2024 20:47

I did several 16+ exams. Sometimes, I think I imagined them so I'm glad to read others did them as well. 😂

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 20:48

Someone mentioned S levels my teacher told us they were between ALevels and the 1st year of a degree

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 20:51

Also at my sixth form you could only do ALevels if you had at least 6 Olevels grades A-C and in the subjects you wanted to study.

PrincessTeaSet · 07/05/2024 20:55

Calistan · 05/03/2023 18:54

O levels were before my time, how much harder than GCSE were they?

I have a feeling that a lot of the A level maths we did used to be covered by O level. I think I was most proud aof my B in A level maths, shit was hard.

I did A levels in the 90s. A levels then were a similar standard to O levels. We used to do old O level papers for A level exam practice.

daisypond · 07/05/2024 21:04

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 20:48

Someone mentioned S levels my teacher told us they were between ALevels and the 1st year of a degree

Yes, I did an S level alongside A levels.

ThinWomansBrain · 07/05/2024 21:06

Depends when he did them, and the school.
Comprehensives were being phased in through the seventies, and some made it really hard to do O levels rather than CSEs. Some subjects I have both.

School wouldn't let me do O level maths, so have CSE.
Always promised myself that when I'd qualified as an accountant, I'd do O level maths just to prove I could. V Hacked off that by the time I'd qualified O levels weren't around any more. Did an MSc instead (not in maths)

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 21:08

I was the last year to have Calculus in the Olevel maths syllabus. I had to teach it to my sister when she did Alevel maths as her teacher just assumed they had done it in Olevels

ThinWomansBrain · 07/05/2024 21:11

CSEs had course based elements of assessment as well as an exam I think - O levels purely exam based - so which was harder depended on your learning style. Only a grade 1 CSE was equivalent to an O level.
You could also do some kind of 'easy' CSE - I can't remember what they were called, but it was a reduced syllabus, but the maximum grade was a 3.

ltappleby · 07/05/2024 21:11

I’m 65 and when I sat O levels they were graded 1 to 6, with 1 being the highest. The letters came in later. My grade 1 maths wouldn’t impress anyone now because the numbers work the other way with 9 being the best.

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 21:13

when I looked at my dcs Alevel maths and further maths syllabus last year all the topics in the 2 subjects were covered in the old Alevel single maths syllabus. I took ALevels in 1986.

unsync · 07/05/2024 21:35

56 and I did O Levels, two in the early November sitting and the rest in May/June the following year. The exam board also trialled 16+ in Biology so I received a dual O Level and CSE grade for that. All grades were through exams, no coursework at all. We also had very little support from school for revision and were pretty much left to our own devices apart from a few handouts.

bruffin · 07/05/2024 21:37

Ilovemyshed · 07/05/2024 20:29

O levels were for the top set students and CSEs were for the less bright.

In my 70s comp we had an O level band (top 2 or 3 classes) , CSE band , think it was about 5 classes and then another band , but not sure what they did

A CSE was equivelent to a the lowest pass O level which was a C. (D was a fail by less than 5 %

SpanThatWorld · 07/05/2024 21:41

Calistan · 05/03/2023 18:54

O levels were before my time, how much harder than GCSE were they?

I have a feeling that a lot of the A level maths we did used to be covered by O level. I think I was most proud aof my B in A level maths, shit was hard.

People often claim that O level Maths covered huge swathes of current A level Maths. Not true. My kids did stuff at GCSE Maths that I never met until A level. Coverage of topics varies across the decades. Its futile trying to compare them.

MereDintofPandiculation · 07/05/2024 21:47

Mycatsmudge · 07/05/2024 20:45

haven't rtft but this is my experience of those exams. I took O levels in 1984 and only the top 3 sets sat them the other 7 sets either sat CSEs or nothing. I also believe you could only apply to universities (termed the Russell group ones nowadays) if you had O levels. Polytechnics however would also accept CSEs. Also when my sister sat GCSEs 2 years later and you could for each subject get the old Olevel grading A-Fs and the CSE grading 1-4. If you got A-C you also got a CSE grade 1 certificate

There were 30 odd universities in all, not all of which are Russell Group today. The likes of Sussex, Kent, Lancaster, Essex started life as Universities. The way you phrased your post made it sound as if all the non-Russell Group universities are ex-polytechnics.