To think GCSE are wrong for many kids

[Mountainsuccess]

I see the level of parental involvement and stress many parents go through when the kids are doing GCSES.

I think if there is so much parental involvement needed surely GCSES are not the right thing for many kids. The number of exams and pressure is completely crazy for a 15/16 year old. Do they actually remember anything after the exams? Or is the UK education system just an exam factory?

The government put so much pressure on schools and schools on teachers, parents, kids. It is just all about results. I feel there is so much micromanaging from the government. Why is this? Why the Government doesn’t trust teachers and parents? Is this ever going to change? Isn’t this supposed to be an advanced country?

Please enlighten me. I am not English but raising kids here.

@SorryWeAreClosed So grade 6 and above % are very close to the % that go to university at 18. We seem to have degrees to suit nearly every level of intelligence if you choose a vocational one! I’d argue lots should not be degrees at all. Firsts unfortunately don’t mean much from some universities either. Having a good suite of higher grade GCSEs, A levels and a degree shows a more academic dc. I would prefer to see less academic dc having an education more suited to them but that needs different schools and not the useless ones we have now.

It’s something like 1 in 7 students sitting GCSEs are officially identified with SEND. That doesn’t include the ones without a diagnosis, anxiety/processing issues without diagnosis, borderline cases, etc. That’s a pretty significant number of kids

Dyslexia/dyscalculia isn’t just reading/writing, it’s also processing speed, working memory, understanding information quickly, processing language, remembering information, understanding complex questions and completing multiple steps, all while under pressure in exam conditions.

I looked into Functional Skills maths level 2 for my daughter the third time she failed her GCSE - we downloaded she found it much more straight forward, real life problem solving written in a way she could understand, process and answer the question, but she wasn’t allowed to do it at college because she’d already got grade 3 at GCSE, so she had to keep retaking an exam that was wholly unsuited to her style of learning.

My friend’s son has to leave his carpentry apprenticeship that he’s doing really well at - he can’t move onto level 3 without passing maths GCSE. He’s had the same experience has my daughter - taken the exam several times and hasn’t been able to get grade 4, can’t do functional skills level 2 which would be enough to get him onto the level 3 course because he got grade 3 at GCSE.

My daughter is at uni (thankfully they overlooked the maths GCSE) and she’s absolutely thriving, Her course is very much continuous assessment/assignment based and much better suited to her style of learning with ongoing assessments and assignments

With around a third of kids failing to achieve grade 4 at GCSE, I do think GCSEs are completely wrong for a lot of kids.

And if we say, well we can’t go back to course work because ai/cheating, then we’re just swapping one set of problems for another because right now, a significant amount of children are not able to access a suitable way to demonstrate their abilities and are being set up to fail.

Yes as that went SO well in 2020 and 2021.

shudders

I apologise if this has already been asked, but how can you make an ofsted inspection less of a horrific, stressful experience for teachers? I am confident my school is exceptional and we were awarded outstanding at our last inspection less than 2 years ago, but it was still one of the most stressful experiences of my career.

I don't like the English Language GCSE at all - it seems to punish creativity, and the high-scoring writing style is awful, really bad writing. I get it probably works better for less creative kids, but feels unnecessarily prescriptive.

It’s a memory test. Agree it fits some kids but not all. A return to coursework plus exam would be far better.
my daughter only passed 3, she resat one alongside level 3 Btecs and is now thriving at university and really happy. They are a one size fits all and they should definitely be adapted!

We have really struggled with this one. My daughter needs a high grade to demonstrate essay writing ability apparently. I'm not sure it shows anything other than the ability to jump through the right hoops. We've spent so much time trying to understand the exam, marking scheme and how it all works. It has been a very frustrating experience.

@Littlecrake continuous assessment does work. The International Baccalaureate is a prime example.

As you enthusiastically shared their GCSE grades, did they all achieve firsts / distinctions in higher education?

Anyone who thinks it’s truly possible to measure a skill like essay-writing with some canned response written under extreme stress, with no ability to research, prewrite/brainstorm, or revise, is a fool.

yep

What about the kids who are not academic
enough or just don’t want to go to University? Given the current graduate jobs crisis it doesn’t mean so much going to Uni anyway unless you do something like medicine or are academic enough for Imperial or Oxbridge. Even then there are no guarantees.

You can’t really compare the emergency, cobbled together teacher assessment in 2020/21 with a properly designed and moderated system

What 2020/21 actually showed is that scrapping exams and trying to replace it with government incompetence. rushed and unmoderated teacher assessments leads to inconsistency and unfairness, not that continuous assessment itself doesn’t work

Yes. If you have 1 exam per subject and you have a bad exam/ headache/ period pain/ hay fever etc, that's it. If you have 2-3 exams per subject, it spreads out a bad day. Exams have always been like this. This is not new.

Not in other countries. In Germany I sat 1 exam per subject. If you are ill on the day, there is a resit day.

Don't all countries have some sort of exam at the end of compulsory schooling? They are not all called GCSEs but the theory is the same. It's an exam at the end of a stage to demonstrate the student has reached a level of competence.

My Dyslexic DS does study, incredibly hard but will have to work twice as hard than most to scrape through GCSE’s.

I said the modern world, not world of work.

I'm not advocating for a return to the tripartite system. Obviously.

@User5667887765544331So you think no other grads get jobs? Oxbridge and Imperial are so choosy but you write off everyone else who didn’t get in? How bizarre.

Not really unless you do something like medicine the jobs market is brutal. That is why we encouraged our DS to do a degree apprenticeship in a tech company as there is a massive surplus of Computer Science graduates. I am not putting down their degrees there are just too many out there for too few jobs.

Yes I agree in principle.

In practice, in the English education system as it currently functions, the exams are one of the few properly functioning bits.

Yes it is but functional skills tests are so wordy that weak students can't access them

Then there needs to be a functional skills that are less wordy. Lots of students have this problem with GCSEs as well.

My main point is that if kids don't pass English and maths first time round, there needs to be a modular course to get them over the hurdle of 'a 4 in maths and English' rather than endless resits of the same format of exam, which over 80% 'fail' (resits).

I agree.

@EttesEttes I must congratulate you on your outstanding parenting of your amazingly bright, talented children.

I mean, what did you hope to achieve on a thread about young people struggling with their GCSEs by boasting about how incredibly intelligent your children are? Hmm?

Your post is extremely tone deaf.

Read the room.

I remember doing A-levels. My parents made a space for me to revise in and left me to it. I smoked roll ups and listened to Pink Floyd, drank brown ale and ate cheese and pickle sandwiches and emerged with 2 A's a 'C' and a 'D'. I was disappointed, Dad was over the moon.