A pass is a pass? GCSE

[Rumplestiltz]

At GCSE, a 4 is a pass. When employers/apprenticeships/further and higher education institutes ask for a pass in maths and English, it’s a 4.

So why the fuss about “strong” passes, which is a 5? Why does the Government organise its data on the proportion who get “strong” passes in English and Maths? Bridget Phillipson saying it’s a travesty that white, working class boys aren’t getting “strong” passes in English and Maths and their life chances are affected as a result. It kind of undermines those who work very hard to get to that pass line of a 4 (teachers and students) to be told it’s not good enough.

I am sure I will be told it’s very easy to get a 4 etc etc, but for some kids in these subjects, it isn’t.

So my AIBU is - a pass is a pass.

But it is enough to do other level three course, s
kids who are getting grades 4and 5 should probably be steered towards a more suitable course.

The change to number grades marks the dropping of most coursework and the return to (a ridiculous amount of) exams. If you are changing the system it can be helpful to indicate that. Having the top grade as a 9 allows to add 10 and 11 later if grade inflation occurs.

I hate all this ‘a 4 is basically a fail’ stuff. I have a non-academic child and I will be bloody delighted if they achieve a 4 in their Maths, when they get to GCSE, because they will have worked really hard to achieve it. I teach, and really dislike the prevailing attitude of educational snobbery on MN. My students work really, really hard (often in challenging personal circumstances) for their ‘basically a fail’ grades. Not everyone can roll out of bed and get a 9.

My child has struggled to attend school and all our focus at the moment (year 10) is getting them a 4 in maths to unlock post-16 opportunities. The school is totally agreed on this. If a 5 is actually the ‘right’ passing grade then this needs to be official. They may apply for A levels at our local college who only require a 4 in maths (and English language of course) plus higher grades for the subjects of study so they clearly don’t consider a 5 to be the ‘real’ level required for someone not planning to study any more maths.

Wwll obviously, that's always Been the case which is why there are many other options.

I hate the numbers level system. The letters made more sense. Everyone around the world knew what a “straight-A” student was or a “D-grade student was”. It’s culturally referenced. A “level 9 student or a level 4 student” is much more confusing.

My son scraped 4 in maths and went on to do brilliantly at a levels. In hindsight the college environment was great for him. Positive engaged teachers and in comparison the school provision was very poor.

You don’t have to retake maths and English if you get a 4.
A 4 is a pass, equivalent to a C.

I think its a thoughtless comment that ignores the hardship some of those boys face just to get a pass. Nobody is really looking at their home lives. If kids are doing better than their parents then that's the start of social mobility.

Unless "white, working class boys" are wanting to go to universities or colleges to study subjects needing "strong passes" then it's neither here nor there.

Most have probably spent years in an unsuitable academic setting and would have achieved more and felt better about themselves learning a trade. I genuinely wish there was some reform to opt out of GCSEs and instead focus on basic numeracy, literacy and critical.thinking, alongside preparing for the world of work - whether that's academics for uni and uni-qualified job or learning a trade and accounting to set up a business.

Somewhere along the way its been forgotten that school is a precursor to work and different students have different interests and capabilities.

Err....it is.

Yes, of course it depends on the subject. Though for psychology I’d think a 5 would be helpful as stats can be challenging).

edited I just looked up the large college within an hour’s driving distance (which is incidentally one of the most deprived areas in the UK) and psychology is minimum 5 in both English. Another college in a more middle class area (about 10 miles
between them) is minimum 4. Maybe the first encourages the 4 passers to do vocational courses.

Absolutely.

But it’s wrong to say a 4 is the same as an old C.

A ‘4’ in maths will allow you to get into a college course in other subjects or a job at McDonalds. It’s the bare minimum.
I guess the government wants our kids to be attaining better than this. Not a bad ambition, I’d suggest.

Agree with the educational snobbery bit. My eldest breezed through A Levels and is now at UCL. Youngest is collecting results this morning and will be delighted if she has the 4s she needs to get on to a level 3 BTech (fingers crossed).

It does. You can get all 4s and do A levels.

4 & 5 are both Cs in 'old money' - hence a 4 being a Level 2 pass.
Obvs schools are under pressure to raise standards and the Govt thumbscrews always tweak the Ts&Cs from the schools point of view.
As someone who lived through O Levels/CSEs - when GCSEs were introduced to provide just one qualification, only less than a G was a fail.
I find it sad that only the grades equivalent to an old O Level (CSE 1) are deemed a pass nowadays, thereby condemning 1,000s of young people to a feeling of failure when they would have passed a CSE.
In truth, under the current system anything less than 4 is a Level 1 pass and for some is an achievement. The idea wasn't that you thought you'd left school with nothing.

I teach maths. Most jobs and courses require a pass in GCSE maths and English. This is a 4 on the current grade system and fulfils this requirement. The lower grades can still be used to gain access to some courses. Some of my students have got conditional offers that require a grade 3 in maths, but they would then need to resit maths along side the course. My local 6th form college is asking for a grade 8 in maths to be accepted onto the further maths A level course. It very much depends what you will be doing next, but for the long term future grade 4 is what you need to say you have passed maths and English.

Michael Rosen once wrote about one of his poems that was being analysed in a GCSE text, saying even he didn't even know what 'the author' felt about some of the things that were asked.

A child with autism that presents in a certain way may be able to write and speak to a very high level but struggle with inference. They have extra hoops to jump for that pass. A child who feels anxious about getting things right, may struggle to write an imaginative piece, especially given that timings are tight.

I’m in Wales and somehow this entire thing has passed me by. How long ago and why did England change from letters to numbers?

To expand:

A grade 4 or above is a Level 2 pass. Colloquially known as 'a pass'.

A grade 1-3 is a Level 1 pass.

Getting a bunch of 3s is often enough to get onto a Level 2 vocational course, which takes a year and from there on progress maybe to a Level 3 course.
Getting mainly 1s and 2s means probably a Level 1 course at college and working up from there. Not everything is about doing A levels and progressing to uni.

For a bunch of young people getting a 4 is an amazing achievement and getting 1-3s or just entering the exam hall at all is an achievement.

A 4 is a perfectly good standard for future life progression. I may actually claim it still includes unnecessary things, not needed in every day life. Should kids really be stopped from progression because they can't do algebra or write about how an author wrote for effect?

Absolutely not arguing with that but as a pp noted, if you are trying to compare to the "Old C", schools used to require 5 cs for 6th form (FE colleges often didn't, they've always catered to a less academic/more vocation cohort). The schools that used to count a C in maths as one of the five required to progress to A-level, do not count a 4. This tells you they do not think the 4 is equivalent to the old C.

That does not mean a 4 is not good enough for many students purposes. It is.

No its not I only got C,s in my GCSE,s back in the 90,s I ended up with 7C,s after resitting some ,I did Alevels and failed them had I steered instead towards a Btech ,I think I would have done a lot better .

It depends. For further education purposes, it will probably be deemed a "fail"

For employment purposes it's a "pass" (certainly I never worked at any firm - and I dealt with recruiting - who asked about grades).

@TeenToTwenties exactly.

please post links of a college naming 3 A levels where you can be accepted on to study the with 5 (or even more) GCSEs all at Grade 4.