To ask if you only have one CSE grade 1

[Cumberb]

.. and the rest all lower grades - you're not that academic?

For reference - I'm talking about someone born prior to September 1971

Yes, that would probably be true.

Schools streamed pupils into either GCEs or CSEs. The brighter ones did GCEs. A grade 1 CSE was the equivalent of a GCE, but other CSE passes were not.

Thanks @BIWI - this is what i thought ! I've no understanding of this system

I would imagine that equates to a single GCSE today at a Grade 4 or 5 (as a pp says, it was the equivalent of an O level pass, but only the lowest pass, ie a Grade C.)

Given anybody with CSEs would now be in their 50s I can’t see what relevance they have to just about anything at this point.
Obviously people with those grades did not due the best at school but this could be as much down to their personal circumstances 35+years ago or a learning difficulty that would now be much better catered as it could a complete lack of academic ability.

Thanks for clarifying @Aaarghthepancakes - my own schooling came after the O level /GCSE times but before GCSE's were graded 4/5 etc!!

Things were very different all those years ago!

There were a lot of reasons why someone might not do well, that don’t mean they weren’t capable of doing so.

I know 1 was the best grade you could get in GCEs but I’m not sure if the system was the same for CSEs (assume so)

I sat my GCEs in 1975, and the grades were A,B,C etc - not numbers based.

Not actually correct. Or at least according to my CSE certificate, which states :

Grade 1 :

Describes a standard such that the candidate might reasonably have attained Grade A, B or C at ordinary level of the GCE Examinations had he/she followed a course leading to that examination.

In that respect you might consider a CSE 1 as a streaming failure as the candidate should really have been doing a GCE O level.

1 CSE at grade 1 meant they only got one GCSE equivalent pass, not that they weren't academic.

I only passed 4 CSE's/O' Levels and got 1 E at A' Level but went on to to pass a law degree and qualify as a solicitor, which is fairly academic in my book!

It doesn't look good, but doesn't mean they "weren't academic" as there may have been other reasons they didn't do well at school.

I only "passed" one CSE (Grade 1 Eng Lit) and one GCE (grade B Maths). That was simply because I'd gone to a crap comp and was bullied virtually daily, including physical assault (fag burns, punches etc). English was the one lesson where we had a decent teacher who put up with no nonsense in his lessons, hence why I could actually learn and study for English!

As soon as I left that hell hole of a school, I did part time, evening classes, etc., to get a better set of GCE's, then A levels, and then chartered accountancy qualifications, and finally a masters!

So, by your metric, I wasn't "academic", but in reality, given a better learning environment, I was!

I did a mixture

Maths O Level
Maths CSE

Sociology O Level
Social studies CSE

Plus some other OLevels, including Latin which although enjoyable it is not very useful in modern society

At 6th form some A levels

Plus some AO levels like General studies

These were the exams offered at the time, so I sat them

OP is talking about CSE not GCE

A CSE grade 1 was considered equivalent to an O Level grade C.

I have one CSE grade 1 plus 3 O Level grade Cs.

I also have a first class degree, an MSc and a PhD.

School was awful, my results at 16 did not reflect my abilities or potential at all.

I’ve only got one CSE grade 1, because the rest of the exams I took were o-levels!

CSEs were structured slightly differently to o-levels, and the questions set in a different way. I recall a CSE 1 being equivalent to o-level grade C.

I took mine in French. I struggled with the o-level questions, but found how they asked the questions in the cse a lot easier.

@user1497207191

I was responding to this point, made by @GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I know 1 was the best grade you could get in GCEs but I’m not sure if the system was the same for CSEs (assume so)

Well, what has the person done since? I don’t think you can say just based on exams taken at age 16 that someone’s definitely not academic.

I don't think the school exam results of someone who will now be in their 50s are anything I'd even be thinking about, to be honest, but it really depends what you mean by academic. A friend of mine left school aged 15 with barely anything - no O-levels, certainly, I don't know CSEs - and who in his early 60s has just achieved a 1st class honours degree, has won two prizes for his poetry and is now doing a Masters. Clearly he is an extremely clever man who is very capable of academic study and research and I would definitely describe him as academic.

There is more to doing well at school than just 'being academic' - even more so in the 70s/80s than now. Things like dyslexia and ASD were barely known about, so bright kids were often assumed to be stupid and shunted into a remedial class when in fact they simply needed the right adjustments. And it's also always been the case that some kids are massively disadvantaged by their background, circumstances or failures of the system. My friend grew up in an extremely deprived area in an extremely poor and chaotic family, suffered prolonged and traumatic abuse by a figure of authority before he'd reached the age of 12, and went to a terrible school where it was assumed most kids would be skilled or unskilled labourers or at best, work in a shop.

It could just mean the school was awful. I am a bit younger than that but staff could physically manhandle you and push you around, punish you with making you hold a board duster against your head and face the wall with your hands behind your back, throw chalk at you and hopefully nothing more heavy. I had a book thrown at me in primary. Staff could humiliate you and name call you in front of the class. Hardly the best environment to learn in. I would be looking at what they had done since then in terms of work etc.

Agree with you @User183642** but OMG you've used the 'f' word !!! Thing is. I think of someone born circa 1970 as being. now around their mid 20s - and can't quite bring myself to say f.....

I did awful at school. I completed several CSEs and got really poor grades. I also did three O Levels, but got terrible grades in those too. I was told I wasn't academic. But in adulthood I completed a number of professional qualifications and did really well, and went on to get a BSc(Hons). So from my experience the academic ability is a product of the environment I was taught in.

@*Brainandbrawndu0
*
Interesting what you say, but I'd have thought Latin was relevant today in that it forms the basis of so many English words

A long time ago O levels (GCEs) were number graded rather than ABC etc. 1 was the highest grade and 9 the lowest. 6 and above was a pass. CSEs were graded numerically with 1 being the equivalent of an O level pass. They were said to be a less academic qualification but education was different then and some people went to selective schools after age 11. Pupils with specific learning needs such as dyslexia could find themselves without much of a chance. On the surface it would seem that someone with only one grade 1 CSE was not particularly academic but there could be more to it.

Sorry for bold fail !!

It meant you didn't do well at school exams (no course working thosedays)
I was the last Yr of GCE/CSEs. My older brother didn't pass any exams , got an apprenticeship with college included. He went on to do his degree and masters without issue, as an adult and warns significantly more than most of our family.

Ah excellent @DRS1970 - I did much better since I left school as well