In unemotive terms, the controversy over rising GCSE/A-level results...

[ragged]

Could someone persuade me why it matters?
Keeping in mind I have a foreign background.

Since colleges and Unis change their admission standards from year to year, I can't figure out why intra-generational comparisons on O-levels/GCSEs or A-levels are so important. Or why the tests need a fairly consistent proportion of Fail results in order to be credible.

Care to persuade me otherwise?

When I was thinking of applying to do an MSc a few years ago I attended an evening at my local university to discuss my options. We (the prospective students) were told the entrance requirements

If you graduated within the last 10 years then you needed, ideally, a first but they would look at 2:1s with industry experience.

If you graduated 10-15 years ago then a 2:1 was required

If you graduated any earlier than that then a HND would suffice.

So there I was with my undergrad degree, (without honours because in the country I come from we don't hand out honours merely for passing your degree, honours is a postgraduate qualification), in a class with the brightest and best of the recent graduates with their first class degrees watching with horror as they whipped out their mobile phones to work out simple division. This was a technical degree for which basic numeracy was essential.

Now it could be that my life experience helped me come top of the class. It could be because I'm brighter than my classmates (though I doubt it) but I suspect my education taught me how to construct a sentence, how to construct an argument, how to plan and write a coherent piece of work and more importantly how to apply knowledge I had gained in one area of study to another.

I work in a university. We spend a lot of time and, more importantly in this climate, resources in getting our students up to a reasonable level of literacy. This is an institution that requires 3 A* A grades for entry.

I agree that more GCSEs has to mean they are studied in less depth.

I did my "O" levels in '83, doing 10 in total, ending up with 5As and 5Bs which I was really, really chuffed with. I found most subjects fairly easy (she says modestly...) and in those days had an almost photographic memory (long since gone unfortunately...) but there is no way there were any more hours in the day to study other subjects...

I remember also that in the 3 weeks of exams I had 2 or 3 exams EVERY day, now that was tough & I was totally exhausted by the end of it. (My DM was fond of reminding me that I spent most of the next week in bed, but that could have just been teenage idleness )

I was the first person to ever do 10 "O" levels at my school, the bright kids normally did 8, the average kids 5 or 6. Back then ending up with 3Bs and 2Cs was seen as ok, as you had the "magic" 5 "O" levels, now it would be a total disaster.

Something has to have changed, and I don't believe that it's because today's teenagers are 50% brighter...

This is a really good thread and I'm glad I started it :).
Am going to ask a related Q in a sec!

c'mon then, gimme a link
[lazy bum emoticon]

It does matter if children are spending 13 years in compulsory education (is it compulsory to 18 yet?) and coming out without useful skills.

I must say, though, that when I was at school, the education system's problem was apparently the less able, far too many of whom were leaving without any qualifications at all. This is what recent changes have addressed, and IMO they have been successful in doing this - I'm not going to Google for the figures as I can't be bothered, but far more people must stay on for GCSEs and A-levels now. I also don't see the problem with resits provided that they are not secret: maybe the grading could be changed in some way so that you get a different type of grade if it's a resit? an A(r) for example?

I did 3 A-levels in 1985-7 (results AAC) and another in 2006-7 (result B). They were in different subject areas, so were bound to feel different. I did come to believe that the depth of knowledge I was required to have was less in the more recent exam; but there was no place to hide, I HAD to know the whole syllabus as there were questions on all of it. In the earlier bunch, I knew what I knew really, really well, but there was room to leave chunks out IMO.

It annoys me as well when simple elements of a question are quoted as examples of dumbing down, when what happened in my more recent exam was that you could get a few marks with the simple stuff, but the complexity of the rest of the question rapidly increased. It is not a problem, IMO, if students go through a course and end up being able to answer simple questions on its content- they have a right to a grade that reflects the fact that they attended and that they could manage the simpler parts of the questions.

I also think the range of subjects at A level/GCSE is daft. I'm not a fan of General Studies or Critical Thinking. And also applied subjects are a bit of a sore subject as well. I know some other Uni's that won't accept an applied subject at all, we do accept them if they are relevant to the programme.

One of my biggest grrs as a Uni Admissions Officer is that we can't judge an applicant because of SPAG these days. For English Lit or Creative Writing? I know, crazy. We are not a top range Uni, mid to bottom league being honest. Our typical offers are BCC/CCC, so what we see in types of applications is the more middle range, yes we do see some stars that come through [but we kind of assume they are just using up a choice rather than likely to firm or insurance accept] and we also see those that are not so good, trying to push themselves. So we look at the applicaiton as a whole, personal statement, reference, actual grades, predited grades and experience to come to a decision.

I have noticed a lot of re-marks this year, more particularly A levels. The biggest jump was an E to a B! Why and how? I almost want to see the report and feedback to understand how the grade could come up that much. Even back 5 years ago, I only ever saw 1 or 2 remarks. This year over 80 applicants have asked for remarks.

I also take the minutes of the exam boards, I find it highly interesting to see some names come up [i have a good memory] of students who need to re-sit a module or re-take the year. Surprisingly it tends to be those that did well at A level that come up more often, rather than those that we accepted who may have slipped a grade at results time.

It also depends on the teaching styles between GCSE/A level/Degree that can also keep grades high, some students flourish under certain circumstances. A student who takes GCSE's and A levels that are mainly exam based may struggle on a degree that is mainly assignment or portfolio based. And vice versa.

Though I like to see whats happened year on year and look for trends. It's more important that the standing within the cohort is consistent rather than between those that took the exam 5+ years ago.

Schools do have tactics to develop the strong students over those that are weaker. I was a keen student, predicted to get 2 C's at GCSE and to flop the rest. I didn't agree with my teachers, my parents didn't know what to do, they encouraged my independant study. I ended up with 3 A's 3 B's and 3 C's. To the shock of my teachers. It wasn't down to schooling, it was down to my own self interest, if I didn't make that effort myself I wouldn't be where I am now. But you've got to wonder, how many other students in my cohort would have done better with the right support from the school, instead of them concentrating on making sure the top 10% of my year got all A's, why not make sure all those due to get D's and E's got the additional support to get C's. It's down to performance issues within schools. [which I am here on unsteady ground, as it's been a number of years since I worked in Secondary and FE admin].

Also, don't believe everything you read in the press. We were recently splashed across the local rag saying we would accept 3 C's at A level in Clearing and how much of a shock and disappointment that was. Considering that an on-time applicant predicted 3 C's would have an offer anyhow, we didn't really understand what point they were trying to get across.

I'll leave my comments there. It's interesting seeing what everyone has to say, and there are some very valid points and ideas here.

ds (y9) came home today and told me he's in the A* stream for maths (i.e. that's what they're supposed to get)

now, given that he's in the 3rd stream of 10 for maths, and it's his weakest subject I think that's fairly conclusive proof that GCSEs are easier

Neither one of my sons (years 12 and 13) know the correct way to write a letter - both received grade A for their English GCSE exams! I still expect them to write thank you letters to people who have been kind enough to send them gifts at Christmas and for their birthdays and every year I have to do a recap on the correct procedure. I do wonder if I was to have the audacity to ask their English teacher to write a professional letter, whether she would be able to.

I also wonder if I was to give my sons a simple sentence and asked them to identify nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives, whether they would be able to do so. Perhaps a better understanding of sentence structure in English would help when they come to study foreign languages.

The exams are getting easier as we have to credit what is correct, rather than penalise what is wrong. Thus, if a candidate writes that Jesus was a sky blue pink with spots alien with green antennae on his head who believed he was the Son of God, I would have to award marks for the son of God and ignore the bit about the alien.

When the new syllabus was introduced for my subject area by the exam board I mark for, the preamble said, we have taken out the areas the students told us they found difficult.

My son is doing a mix of IGCSE and GCSEs, and it astounds me that he is on track for an A/A* in French, when he didn't know avoir and etre off by heart. He knows them know, because I ensured he he did.

To stick up a bit for exam boards (yes I know I will probably be flamed) what is put in the specifications (syllabuses) is very tightly controlled by the subject criteria laid down until recently by QCDA, and now by ofqual, and all the specifications have to be accredited by them. So if letter writing isn't taught as part of GCSE English then it's because the government haven't wanted it to be included.

The other issue which has had a massive impact on qualifications is league tables. Schools want their candidates to get better GCSEs and more of them, which is why 12 is now the standard, so their league table standing will improve. As there are 3 exam boards schools have started choosing the specification they perceive as being the easiest and it leads to a downwards spiral in standards.

THe problem with the marking (ignoring the easier or not issue for a mo) is that the approach which says you jump through x hoops so you get an A and you jump through y hiops and you get a B is that there is no indication of RELATIVE attainment amongst your peers.

So using this example the very bright student could jump through x hoops plus a triple back flip with pike and will not be credited with a higher grade than the student who merely jumps through the hoops.

THe way it was marked back in the day is that they marked ALL the papers THEN graded them, taking the top 5% (or whatever) as A, the next 10% as B etc so that the grade is always relative to the performance of your cohort that year. THis makes it a lot easier for Admissions tutors and employers to assess between students.

And of course the exams are easier. My DS is doing 13+ Common Entrance and using GCSE revision guides and textbooks. Enough said.

So willali is it fair that one year triple back flip with pike will be worth an A but the next year when there is a really strong cohort all performing quadruple flips with twists (etc.etc) it's only worth a C? How does that tell employers/universities what candidates can do?

abgirl - it tells them what they can do RELATIVE to others

It happens with selective schools admissions - one year the children might get in with 60% or above, the following year the effective pass mark might be 80% because they start at the top of the list and work down till they get to the number of children they can take. If they can take 100 children and the 101st child gets 1% less than the 100th child then even if that score is 95% they don't get in, when in other years they might well have done. That's tough I know but the way it goes. We need to be able to differentiate between the bright and the truly exceptional in a way that today's system does not. We are afraid of telling people they failed.

In my personal view I think it will become the norm for Universities to set their own admissions exams in order to achieve the aim that the A level system used to, thus rendering the A level pretty useless

I think the problem with the very high grades is that it effectively puts a ceiling on what a pupil is expected to achieve. The marking is done by tick-box, and if your work ticks all the right boxes, you get 100%.

Now that just about makes sense for eg maths, where the answer is either right or wrong -- back in the olden days, people very occasionally did get in the high 90s in maths exams, or even 100%. But it makes far less sense for an essay-based subject, or any subject with open-ended discursive questions.

My dd got 100% in her end-of-year English exam two years running. Now obviously she is doing well, and that is all great, and yadda yadda. But it raises the question: Are they really saying that all her answers were perfect? That there was nothing at all that could have been improved on? And what message does that give the pupil?

I remember coming first in an English exam back in the 1980s, and asking my teacher why, if my result was considered so good, I'd only got 75% or whatever it was. I remember her saying, "Well, it could always have been better, you're never going to get a perfect answer, so you could never get 100%". As a teenager I was a bit and about this, but with hindsight she was of course completely right. Old-fashioned marking, opaque and arbitrary as it may sometimes have been, did at least give you a vision of what else you could go on to do, something to aim for, the prospect of new things to move onto. Whereas my dd's 100% says, "we gave you a bunch of hoops and you jumped through them really well."

The obvious practical disadvantage of this kind of marking is that as soon as you set an artificial ceiling with clearly-defined steps to getting there, more and more people will reach it, making it difficult or impossible to distinguish between people who are genuinely extremely able and insightful, and people who are hard-working and good at learning how to jump through hoops. It may even disadvantage some of the really able left-field thinkers, who are more interested in engaging with the topic than learning how to tick boxes on the examiner's score sheet.

I did a straw poll among the radiographers I work with yesterday, to see what their offers were at the time they did their diplomas or B.Sc. It really did vary. The older folk with diplomas and who did O and A levels had C and D offers. Those who were at the start of the BSc program had Bs and Cs and the origin of the discussion, the daughter of one of them, has just been given a couple of AAA offers to study it.

These were my offers to study Physics in 1985:
Bristol: BB
Manchester: BBC
Nottingham: CC
Imperial: EE

Can you imagine being offered two Es to get in Imperial these days to read Physics? Well, OK, they gave those offers to folk they were pretty convinced would get a heck of a lot more, but all the same... I got AAB and went to Bristol in the end, with Imp as backup.

To comment on GCSE grades, I have a grade B O level in French. I also have a grade A GCSE in German which I did at nightschool in 2000. The latter was vastly easier. From all reports, it's now easier still. (Pity I still can't speak any modern foreign lang very well!)