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.

Good luck and fingers crossed for him.

MN can be a noisy place when it comes to mums boasting in a way they'd love to boast IRL, but no-one IRL would ever speak to them again so they come here instead!

It's great to have a concept of what is realistic for your dc and to be able to celebrate with them when they achieve well within their expectations. Nothing to be proud of in expecting more than they can manage ...

It depends what you mean a fail if you mean equivalent to a grade C ,a four is a low C
Grade 1,,2 and 3 are below C,s so it's still a GCSE grade but not a level 2 grade I'm not msking it up 🙄

This. If there are only so many places on courses and/or joining a course requires a certain level of whatever skills, there has to be a subdivision beyond pass/fail.

It's because a "weak" pass means their grasp of English, maths or whatever isn't really very good. How many posts do you see on here (it's MANY) in which people think the phrase "He's going..." is written "His going"? "Would of/could of/should of/etc"?

4 is 4, 5 is 5, sometimes colleges and employers distinguish between them in terms of what qualifications they ask for.

But it doesn’t matter until you’ve not got the grades you need. Provided you can do what you want next, it’s just a number. Frankly, the more vocational your career, the less likely you’ll be replaced with AI. Hairdressing, pest control, early years childcare, park rangers, security guards, construction - all of these offer choices for steady work without the need for a huge number of passes, ‘strong’ or otherwise.

A U is an absolute fail.
1-3 is a pass at level 1 (so a fail for Level 2 if you want to express things as failure)

(And a 6 is maths is a 'fail' to make the grade to do A level Maths in most institutions if you want to be negative.)

Yes 4 is a pass because they don't have to retake English or Maths if they get a 4.

9 is a high A star
8 is a lower A star
7 is an A
6 is a B
5 is a high C
4 is a lower C

On a bell curve of GCSEs attained nationally, Grade C was a 'pass' and used to be the grade most commonly achieved - perhaps this is why they decided to divide it between 4 and 5.

If you fail I think it’s recorded as a U. The exam boards all publish their grade boundaries, there’s a minimum number of points across all papers that will be accepted for a grade 1 (which is a pass).

My husband and I both did computer science degrees. I followed the A level route and he did BTEC, having minimal GCSEs which didn't include maths, but had a keen enthusiasm for programming and a lot of technical ability.

A first module of our degree was a rehash of A level pure maths, taught absolutely brilliantly and I think if everyone got this level of teaching at the right age/stage of development for them then they wouldn't think they were bad at maths.

The law around education states that children have to be taught to their age, ability, aptitude and any SEN - that is all very well until they're squeezed down the funnel of having to all sit GCSEs at the same time!
This doesn't allow for those who have difficult circumstances or need a little longer to join the dots and simply need a year or two extra to be ready. As an example, even just considering age - one of my children was the youngest in their cohort having sat GCSEs before they even turned 16. The other will be 9 moths older than that when they finish their exams.

Also, it's nonsense people coming along on their high horses to declare a 4 is a 'fail' because 'x,y,z sixth form near me requests a 5 to do an A-level in a subject and look, my DC can do so with their 5s and 6s etc etc. '

Very selective schools demand 8s and 9s in a subject to continue to a level - on the basis of this logic, their 5s or 6s or even 7s would be a 'fail.' Which they are clearly not.

In reality, you probably need a 7 at GCSE to continue (and do well) in a subject to A-level. But that doesn't mean that 4s, 5s and 6s are 'fails' because not everyone even wants, or needs, to do A-levels.

> their life chances are affected as a result.

I think we all know that almost nobodies' life choices are affected by GCSE results

My son had to retake his maths 5 times to get a 4. A 4 is a pass and he was thrilled to finally get it. Most of his grades were 4's with a few 5's - he's at university now so just goes to show, you can get there with standard passes.

U is a fail. The same as the old system.

My DS got 3's and 4's, enough to get him on the course he wants to do at college and I couldnt be prouder 😃

It's not a particularly new system. And an all letter grading system was only around for 30 years before this change. I did O levels in 1987, and most people in my school did CSEs, which were numbered. I did one exam that was a sort of precursor for GCSEs that came in the following year, so I got both a grade A O level and a grade 1 CSE in the same subject.

The comparisons to an old grading system are out of date, not well understood and misleading. We need to focus on current requirements for progression.

We live in a deprived area where the best school has only a 50% pass rate for English and maths (4 and above). In better areas it's more like 25-30 percent, so we have a huge proportion of the countries 'failing' students.
The 7,8,9 students will mostly still get their 7,8,9s but the middle students who could be bumped up to 6 and 7 with good teaching and environment are less likely to be and so many are being outright failed by circumstance, clearly rather than ability as the spread of ability throughout the country ought to be more even.

Big well done to your son, that’s great @Megifer .Fab he’s got on to his college course.

An exam isn't the best way of determining whether someone's grasp of English and Maths isn't good... thats the problem. There are many perfectly literate and numerate people who struggle with the exams. And once they have that magic Grade 4, no one ever worries about that again, as the actual relevant subjects matter more.

I think it’s difficult to treat ‘progression’ as the key metric - because, as this thread demonstrates, what is required to progress varies between institutions.

Locally, 4s are the progression marker for A levels. Where we used to live, 5s, 6s, 7s or 8s were the progression markers for A levels, depending on institution.

If we are objective:
A 4 is a Level 2 pass. It is also the benchmark ‘controlled’ politically and by the exam boards, in the sense that each year the marks for a 4 are set such that the proportion of students gettibg 4 and above does not dramatically fluctuate (as exams are norm-referenced not criteria-referenced, so any mark shows how you performed against your cohort’s distribution rather than showing that you have specific skills).

Fantastic @Megifer Hope you have a nice celebration today and that he enjoys his college course.

My son didn't sit any GCSEs, he's just passed his Level 3 BTECH and off to university in Sept - there is always a pathway for students who don't get top marks!

Exactly. The exam mark is only very tenuously related to ‘what someone can do in a real life context’.

’Functionally literate’ - can read enough to read a simple daily paper and fill in forms etc - was, when I worked in school with a large proportion of illiterate parents - round about the old primary Level 3 (c. Y3 / 4 level; the mark obtained by a Y2 exceeding expectations or a Y6 not achieving Y6 SATs).

’Basic Maths’ - add, subtract, multiply, divide, work out money - probably very similar. The current primary syllabus covers enough Maths to get Level 3 in Foundation GCSE, and Functional Skills Maths (considered GCSE equivalent) is offered to those who get 1s and 2s at GCSE.

So someone with a good grasp of the primary curriculum in Maths and English is ‘fundamentally literate and numerate’: getting 4s at GCSE is actually testing something entirely different and potentially not as useful.

You absolutely do not need a 7 to continue and do well at Alevels. I got nothing higher than a B (so potentially no higher than a 5) and I got ACC and went on to a decent uni. Had i spent less time in the local cafe I would probably have improved on those C grades!

For maths you would need a 7, out local college asks for 6 for MFL or Science in that subject, but for arts and humanities a 4+ is just fine.

My boy got his maths and English! Wahoo! We’ll not mention the others!

Exactly. Two of mine were academic and got ten Grade 9s each. The other was very dyslexic, dropped French and History GCSEs and scraped seven Grade 4s (but a 9 in Art & Design). I was just as delighted for her and relieved she didn't have to retake English and Maths! She did not do A-levels but still got into Central St Martins art school and is 'doing her thing' in her own way. And her literacy has improved a lot with age as she's found her own strategies to cope with dyslexia. Once they're onto the next stage, they barely remember what they got for GCSE.