What were "good" O level results in 1987?

[Tanaqui]

Does anyone have any data on how O level grades back then correlate to GcSE grades now?

I am aware that it obviously isn't a clear comparison, but maybe just in terms on what % of children got an A, B or C?

Year 11 ds wants to know how well I did, compared to how well he might do!

Feel very old as 87 was the last year of O levels!

Have tried google, but get lots of newspaper dumbing down articles and would rather something a bit more accurate.

Thanks.

I took mine in 1974, they were graded 1-9 as roguedad explained upthread. I got 3 O levels grade 1-6 and a grade 1 CSE which was considered equivalent to an O level pass. This was at a secondary school and those doing exams stayed on past Easter and I think those that were 16 by Easter, who were not doing exams could leave at Easter. A lot of my time at school in the O level years (10 and 11) was spent doing typing and shorthand as it was expected the girls would mainly get office jobs, the ones that left at Easter usually worked in the factories. It was easy to get a job then.

I did mine in 87.

I got 6 As and the rest Bs. I remember my friend getting 9As, but she was a total brainy swot and went on to do medicine at Cambridge.

I got an EE offer for university with my less than perfect results.

Sorry to disappear- dinner boiled and I lost the ability to write coherently!

If I am reading people correctly, 9-10 A grades did happen, but it meant you were Oxbridge material? Did anyone manage the 10 As from a bog standard comp?

I wish I had had a better secondary education, although of course the teachers' strike in around 86 (?) must have affected every state school.

You could still take shorthand and typing at my school but not if you were in the O level groups. And in the equivalent of year 9, boys still did woodwork/ metalwork and girls did cookery and needlework! In 1984.

I got 2 As, 3 Bs and 4Cs. I think a couple of people got all As in my comp - they both went to cambridge to read medicine. I got 3 As at a level though (didn't revise for o levels really and underestimated that I would get asked about my rubbish grades for ever). I had BBB/BBC offers to read law at university.

I don't think I was/am particularly bright, but hardly anyone in my school got all As then. When I started work in the City I was with loads of oxbridge graduates (top city law firm) who all got As across the board.

I got my 9 As at a non-selective school in a town with 4 grammar schools, so not even a properly comprehensive school. I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. I wonder if I would have applied had I gone to one of the grammars (mum v anti selective education). I am v proud of where I did go though.

I took O Levels in 1987. Our school was selected to take O levels, CSEs and prototype GCSEs in order to cross reference grades, in Chemistry and Art. I didn't do Art, but for Chemistry I got O level grade B, CSE grade 1 and GCSE grade A.

OP, my best friend from school got 10 A's and was definitely Oxbridge material, but didn't want to go there. We both went to the same city - she to the Uni with 4 A's, me to the Poly (on an EE offer) as I wanted to get a vocational qualification

I thought it was very unfair that woodwork/metalwork was not on offer at our all girls grammar - I could already cook and sew!

Fallen you are probably one of the cleverest people on here. Most of us just chat crap.

2 As, 5 Bs and 1 C at O level in 1985.
3 As and 1 C at A level in 1987.
Got to go to a good second tier (not Oxbridge) Uni and got a 2.1 there.
Done OK since then :-)

Hmmm - early 80s.
Dsis selective private school - standard entry was 10 - very bright did 11. She got 8bs and 2cs and was considered to have done really badly...at least two of her friends got 10 As (one got 11) and both of those got As at A level (one got 4 or maybe 5)... however both did go to Oxbridge (and got firsts).
I was at a standard comp, scheduled to be entered for 10 O Levels...then it all went wrong (I rebelled - stopped going to school ), they didn't enter me for one but the rest I turned up for the exams and got 2Bs, 4Cs, D and E (I also got an X or something for one I hadn't done any coursework for - and my D was one I handed in less 1/4 of the coursework I should have done ).
I was considered 'bright' ...(I started 5 A levels before I dropped out completely) but I wasn't anywhere near the cleverest in my school year ...so they can't have been that hard really.

That said I know exams have definitely been dumbed down ...I went back and did 2 A levels in the 90s.
In one, done over 2 years, I walked an A (I found my notes from the first time round - an essay I handed in was graded C ...but I know it would have been A by 90s standards)
Second one was done over a year (actually less than -started one course but it was dropped after a month or so, had to go to another course at another college) and I got a C ...(cried with relief when I did). I know I failed one module (out of 4) really really badly (just didn't know any of the stuff - couldn't have got more than 10%) .... I found that quite shocking.
(although tbf I guess I did have an aptitude for the subject -eg got a comfortable first in part of that subject in a Uni end of year exam -so would have done well at the other modules...but still....)

As a mature student that was good enough to get me into a good UK university (top 5), got a 2.1 (and then a Phd).

I did a prototype exam in RE, so I also have a CSE grade 1 in that, from the same paper as my O level.

I missed most of my last term of school in O level year (1983) because of illness. I ended up with 5 As and 4 Bs (comprehensive).

Well, I did a big clear out of my department a few years go and found an O level Biology paper from 1982. My top set (so the ones who would have done O levels) could do most of it. They couldn't draw and label the ventral surface of an earthworm, but I feel that's no great loss. They were bemused by the lack of questions on gene technologies, until I reminded them of the timelines involved...

I was in the last year of O-levels, 1987, at my grammar school.
I got 3A's & 6B's which was fine. There were a few girls who got straight A's.

The following year, the first intake of GCSE girls got significantly more A's. even though they weren't any cleverer, than our year. (You tended to know who the bright girls were at our school.)

There was a brilliant girl at my school who got 9 A grade O'Levels and 3 or 4 As at A'Level. The school suggested she did medicine. She did nursing because her father (a local vicar) thought that was more appropriate for a girl. She is now CEO of a Health Authority so maybe it wasn't all that bad. Might have outed self (or her ).

At a girl's grammar in 1986 I took 8 O levels, but also one subject (history) in gcse and O level.
I got 3 As, 2 Bs and 3Cs.
I got a C in O level history but a B in the same subject as gcse, which blatantly shows that gcses are easier.
Even at a good grammar school, out of 120 girls only 1 got 9 A grades at O level and she went on to get 3 A grades at A level.
I went on to my local college and got A B C at A level in subjects I loved.

University requirements have changed too. The course I started in 1987, I had an offer of 9 points (old system equivilent to 3 grade C's at A level), the same course now asks for AAB at A level!

There supposedly hasn't been the same grade inflation in Scotland as in England but just checked my old Uni which asked for BBBB in Highers in 1989 and is now asking for AAAAAB at Higher which is more than was needed for Medicine or Vet Medicine 26 years ago. So looks like quite a lot of grade inflation, especially if you think there are far more spaces at Uni now.

I can't remember my standard grade results, I didn't get a 1 in French but suspect all the others were 1s (so 7x1, 1x2). And my Highers were AAAABB which were the best grades in my school year (only ~10% of us went to Uni). Oxbridge wasn't really an option, too far away and required work in 6th year, whereas I got 5 unconditional offers from the Scottish Unis based on my 5th year results. Got to Oxford for my doctorate though .

I got 8 As and 2 Bs while at a very academic school in 1986. The year of my A levels I also did a GCSE. This was 1988 and, I believe, the first year of GCSEs. I was not remotely interested in doing well in the GCSE (the last paper was scheduled for sports day or even the last day of term, as far as I remember). I did 1.5 of the 3 papers and got a B! That said, I think my children have to work much harder for their GCSEs than I ever did.

I'm foreign, so I asked my DH. He took O levels in 1985. He got 6 As, 4 Bs, and 1 C. He was at a provincial private school on the assisted place scheme. He went on to do an engineering degree at Imperial College.

I was at a state grammar in the early 80s: I got 1 A, 5 Bs and 2 Cs.

And from that, via some non-stellar A Levels, went to Cambridge. So it is NOT true that everyone at Oxbridge had straight As. Far from it: I was not alone. I felt a total fraud, though: I kept expecting to be told they'd made a mistake in the admissions office.

I didn't say that everyine there had all As. I said that everyone I knew there had all As. And they did. I don't claim to know every single person who was there throughout the 80s.

I got 8As and a B (art) in 1985, then another A for computer studies (!) in 84, then 3As and a B for A level in 85. I was at a very academic girls school, and I remember clearly at LVI parents evening being told to "apply to plenty of polytechnics" because I wanted to study accountancy at uni. Oxbridge was certainly never mentioned. Sadly the teacher in question died before I got my A level results and got into my first choice uni with no bother. I would have loved to have had that conversation with her

I got 8 As and a B that year and went to Cambridge

The closest I can get to an alternative answer. Apparently:

20% used to get O-level grade C or above.
60% used to get CSE grade 5 or above.

60% now get GCSE grade C or above.

Draw your own conclusions.