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 ?

Pre 1992 there were lots of universities that weren't/aren't Russell Group.

English universities all accepted CSE1 as an O level C but many Scottish universities didn't.

I worked in university admissions in the 1980s

Both those statements can be true - that O-level maths included things that don't appear nowadays till A-level, and GCSE maths contains stuff that you didn't meet till A-level. As you say, curriculums change.

I was about to say the same thing. There are some reknowned and some very old Universities that aren't in the RG.
Plus you still needed A levels to do degrees at a Polytechnic - you couldn't sign up for a BSc with 3 CSEs or anything! They did do courses other than degrees too which may have had lower entry requirements, I don't know for sure but my DH went to a Poly and needed broadly the same qualifications as he would have done to do a similar degree at a University.

I don't think I levels were the top 20%.

My school had 3 streams. Top stream O Levels. An unnamed other stream for CSEs, more average academically thinking of my friends in there. The two streams were roughly the same size. Then there was a much smaller third stream for the children below average academically/with learning disabilities. So I'd estimate 40/40/20 % in each stream. As others have said, there was an overlap though of the top CSE grades and lower O level grades.

Ooh that was a bloody good guess, although this excludes those who weren't entered for either.

I went to a huge, 14 form entry secondary in the 1980's. I did 7 0 levels and 3 CSE's. Most pupils did CSEs while more academic pupils pushed towards sixth form and university.

There were also more practical options like RSA typing, metal work and woodworking qualifications. Those who really struggled with written work could do rural studies.

There was some good things. There was probably a better range of subjects and Pupils could leave school earlier and get a job. There were plenty of manual jobs and office work that didn't need exams.

But dyslexia and other neurodivergence was mostly missed and a lot of people we're funnelled into low level jobs who could have achieved more given support and opportunities.

I did my O levels at the time when the exams were starting to change. For most subjects, we did either O levels or CSEs - the latter were for the less academically able children, as previous posters have said. And a grade 1 CSE was equivalent to a C grade O level.

However, in Chemistry and History, we did the 16+ - an exam that was supposed to replace the O level and the CSE - I think it was the forerunner of the GCSE. Basically, when the exam was marked, if you got a CSE grade 1, your paper was then reassessed to give an O level grade too - so in Chemistry I got a grade 1 CSE and a B at O level, and in History, I got a grade 1 and an A at O level.

I suspect that this was too clunky, which was why the GCSE was developed.

I think it's probably true that O-levels were intended for the top 20%. They replaced School Cert after the 1944 Education Act, and were intended for grammar school children at a time when many secondary modern children left at 15 - in order to accept a place at grammar school, my parents had to sign a statement that they would keep me at school to 16, beyond school leaving age.

After the school leaving age was raised in 1973, the proportion of children taking an exam at 16 increased.

For many of us who did O levels and then went on on to teach our specialist subjects at different levels, the difference in standards between O levels and GCSEs is quite stark. I also believe our A levels were more difficult in many ways than those of today. The difference is that the older exams approached the syllabi with the subjects in depth rather than breadth, which is the approach today. At music O level, one of the papers was for music history. We had two set works - in my year, it was Winter from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi and Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture - and it was an essay paper. We would be asked a specific question about each of the set works and a general question about the background to them. For example, having answered the question about Winter, the general question would be along the lines of “Describe the rise of the solo violin concerto in the Baroque period.” In those days, it was also only the top sets that sat the literature paper in English. Everyone else sat the language paper only. One of our novels was Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, which I loved. I have been told that this would be too difficult for most GCSE students today. We were also expected to read the whole works we were studying, not the segments that appear to be accepted today. Languages were different, too. We had a dictation element. A short piece would be read out on tape and we had to write down exactly what we had heard. Every word had to be spelled correctly and every accent in the right place. You lost marks for every mistake you made and could end up with minus marks. It was not unknown. This was the one element of the exam where I was at a disadvantage. I have had a hearing impairment most of my life and the only concession I had was to sit near the tape recorder. I really needed to be in a separate room with the teacher reading it more slowly and so that I could lip read if necessary. I passed French O level, though, in spite of this. The language oral exams were totally unseen - you could be asked about anything; unlike today when topics are prepared in advance. I remember my friends who took languages at A level studying literature by the masters of the countries of the language they were taking, so French students would study Moliére, for example, and those taking German would study Goethe or Schiller. This has not been the case for decades. As for graded music exams, these have also gone in the same direction. When I took grades six and seven piano, we had four pieces to learn. In grade eight we went back to three pieces - but the B piece was a complete three movement sonata and not the single movement of today. The amount of scales was phenomenal and the aural tests were also harder.

Probably a bit different in my areas of expertise @Violinist64 but there has been so many developments in Science since I was at school that there are things on the GCSE syllabi now that were exciting, cutting edge findings when I was at University. And have you looked at a periodic table recently? Looks an awful lot different to when I was doing Chemistry A level!
I actually think my children have had a far better science education than I had at school. There seems to be a lot more thinking and evaluation of evidence and less rote learning. It's a different world. The instant accessibility of information means that it is now less important that things are learned off by heart but far more important that people are able to critically evaluate what they are reading. When my DS tells me about the kind of discussions they've had in his A level classes I'm generally pretty impressed - I think it's a lot more useful than the "memorise and regurgitate" approach I experienced.
I think there was a phase when GCSEs were very dumbed down, particularly when they were modular and largely course work and some schools were putting pupils in for ridiculous numbers of subjects. But the syllabus changes, particularly the most recent ones, seem to have brought things back to a more sensible level, in the subjects I know something about anyway.

@MrsAvocet, I was going by my knowledge of arts based subjects, but it is interesting to read your experiences. Sciences are a very different animal and, yes, science and technology has changed out of all recognition since the 1980s. When I started secondary school, there was one computer for the entire school and the idea was that if you were good at maths, you could learn some computer science in the sixth form. By the time I was in the upper sixth, the computer revolution was in its infancy and beginning to be taught all through the lower school. I think that the sciences have to keep moving and adapting in a way that the arts subjects should do, but often do not. I think that the sciences are vital, of course, but the pushing of the STEM subjects at all costs has meant that the arts subjects have stagnated, if not regressed. We need both arts and sciences for well-rounded people.

Oh I couldn't agree more @Violinist64 My DD trained as a professional dancer and now teaches and both my sons though scientists are reasonably good amateur musicians so I appreciate the value of the arts.
I think the EBacc is a lot of the problem. Whilst it sounds good in principle the effect on the non "core" subjects is appalling. At my DC's school they do 9 GCSEs and more or less everyone does the EBacc qualifying subjects which only leaves them with one genuinely free choice. Of course the numbers choosing the creative and practical subjects are plummeting. My elder son was one of only 7 out of a year of over 180 to choose Music GCSE. With the financial pressures on schools you wonder how sustainable continuing to offer the GCSE and A level courses in such subjects are with very low numbers. Then if you're not offering the exam courses is it worth having specialist music teachers (and would anyone want the job anyway?) So then KS3 music is threatened, no school choirs, orchestras, Carol Services and Summer shows...it doesn't bear thinking about.

I did an S level as well as A levels - a lot later than that.

I sat my O levels in 1985 and my school just did 16+ in geography and history at that time.

I took O levels, and came acorss this, some pals who achieved CSE grade 1s and discovered unis/colleges wouldn't recognise as equivalent.

The main issue I heard was that the curriculum was completely different... for example the maths was much more practical than the O level syllabus.

I took O level music, and because we were a small school, the O level and CSE students were taught together. I well remember one lesson, when the teacher needed to do something specific with the CSE students, so sent the 4 of us off to discuss an essay subject, then write it for homework.

The essay title was "The organ fugues of Bach are academic and boring - discuss". We knew what answer the teacher wanted, but felt contrary that day, so we discussed it, and went home and wrote essays that agreed that, yes, they were academic and boring, and gave examples to back up our views. He was not best pleased!

My school used to insist CSE grade 1 was equivalent to an O level grade a to c but we all knew it wasn't. It was usually a different curriculum plus no college/job asking for at least O level grade b would accept it. My school used to make people do CSEs if they thought there was a chance of them failing o level and then would praise themselves for the number of CSE grade 1s. I used to think it was really bad they hadn't given those people a chance to do an o level.

I did a mixture of o levels and CSEs but I went to a private school.

CSEs were for people that didn't haven't the ability to do the O level equivalent but I remember being entered for both exams for a subject and the CSE paper was harder than the O level. There was no coursework for CSEs, just an exam

Well if it was equivalent to a grade C it makes sense that no where requiring at least a grade B would accept it,

They said it was equivalent to gcse grade a, b and c

I mean o level grade a, b and c

CSE grade 1 was a grade C only at O level or a 6 if a numeric. In other wide, the lowest grade. So would be a 4/5 GCSE now.

Interesting how previous posters have said that 5 O levels was considered very good. I did mine in 86 and never felt academic with my 5 passes which included a GCSE which was trialled on my year.

I have worked with a couple of people who only did CSEs and they were fantastic at their jobs.

I always feel old when I do job applications as CSEs don't feature on drop down choices for qualifications. We were told that a CSE grade 1 was equivalent to o level grade C but I knew not many people would remember that.

A levels at school were to prepare you for Uni - lots of background reading. I did an A level in my 30s just for interest and I found it easy but then I was almost middle aged

I did O levels in ‘82 and five O levels would not have been considered good. Not bad, but not good.

Taking 9 0levels, 3 ALevels and Alevel general studies as a non revisable exam was the norm at my comprehensive school in the 80s