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.

DH and I did O-levels in 1977 (8a, 1b and 7a,1b respectively) then AAB and AAAB for A-level. Redbrick chemistry degree offers DDD and EEE - they wanted me more.

I don't think GCSEs are entirely comparable. Dd is doing 12 (all this year, none early). She seems to be working a lot harder than I ever remember doing! It seems a lot more professional than it used to - their savviness about marking schemes and grade boundaries and actually knowing the syllabus and course specification.

I did last year of o level in 1987 and added on some GCSEs the year after. Selective independent school. I got 2 A's, the rest B & one C - 8 O'levels was considered good. Added 3 GCSEs so took my total to 11. Uni offer was also EE, got a 2-1 undergrad and 1st class postgrad. They definitely made exams easier. Coursework was an added bonus for those who were crap at exams like me.

6As, 2Bs and 2Cs. AAC at a level. Onto oxford where I have absolutely no idea whether everyone else had straight As as it would have been considered tragic to talk about them.

Only one girl at school had straight As and she went on to become a real life rocket scientist.

In 88 so GCSEs I got 8 As and a B which were the second best set of grades in my year group of 270 (state comp). Like halfway above I also went on to Cambridge.

I got ABB at A level but applied for uni after taking them.

I did last year o levels 87 and got 5A & 4B and was considered academic. Then I did IB in 89 and got 43 which everyone seemed impressed about but I never really knew how good it was. I got ludicrously easy offers from all uk unis applied to but no interview at Cambridge.

In 1981 I got 1 A, 4Bs and 4 Cs; I was at a good grammar school in Northern Ireland. That was pretty good - I only remember one boy getting all As and he was considered to be exceptionally bright.

CPtart - I did GCSEs in 1988 too and remember a similar experience, teachers didn't really know how to handle it. We basically got taught the O level syllabus using the old text books, but didn't get taught exam technique and that kind of thing.

I ended up with 4 As, 4Bs and a C. Only one person got all As and her parents had employed a tutor (unheard of in a fairly rough school)

Dh did O levels in 87, got 7xA, 2xB and a C (I think) though he took a few early. He ended up at Cambridge.

I know how you feel OP I got 7A and 1B in my O levels in 1987, DS took his GCSEs in 2013 and got 7A 1A and 1B so pretty comparable but he can't get over how I got into uni with my 'crap' A level results! I went to Leeds, science subject with BCD, the offer he has to meet this summer for Maths and Computing is AA*AA

MadameJ, that's exactly what I can't get - I got offered places on EE when I went in 83, now it seems to be all A's and B's needed for Uni

Plus, looking at this thread, my O'level results were better than some of those going to Oxbridge, yet I was never considered a high-flier at my grammar school!

EE was the minimum you had to get to qualify for a grant and for the state to pay for your fees. That's why there were EE offers - it just meant they really really wanted you (or, in the case of oxbridge, you'd passed the entrance exam). After they abolished the entrance exams, EE offers went away for a while. EE offers were also common from conservatoires - grant qualification again. For them it was all about the auditions.

In 1977 old I got 6 A's and 3 B's, then an A, 2 B's and a C at A level - having already got into Oxford via what was known as the 4 term Oxbridge exam and only needed 2 E's at A level.

The only people ever to get near all A's were scientist who were doing maths, further maths, and even harder maths etc. where it is possible to get 100%. ARts students essentially never got straight A's.

Tinkly- that sounds like my school. It had been a secondary modern then became a comprehensive. We were the second comp intake so careers advice was: law? Ooh very hard to get into, medicine ? Ooh very hard to get into, but the factory down the road wants machinists
Luckily I went to university and worked for many years in a profession that was "very hard to get into"
This was late 80s and I got 4 As 5Bs at o level and 5 A levels inc 2 A grades.

I got 5 As and 4 Bs at O level from my pretty crap comp in 1984. They were the best results in my year of 280 and the school had never ever had anyone get straight As. They were hopeful that I might be the first so when I phoned from holiday to get my results the headmaster told me how disappointed he was in me...!

I got 6 As and 3 B in O level at a fairly crap grammar turned comp in 1981. I think only 2 people got more than me. I was encouraged to try out for Oxbridge but I didnt want to as I did not want to do any of the courses there. Got an A and 2 Bs at A level. None of these grades have ever impressed anyone! Well apart from my Mum.

Ooh, great thread.
I have a dd in Y11 doing GCSE's too

I did my O levels in '81 and got one A, 2 B's and 4 C's, and an E for French
I did a bit better for A level (where I'd dropped my worst subjects such as languages and even liked some of my choices) And got a B and 2 C's which was just what I needed to go to Bristol Uni.

Anyway I've told dd that there's been grade inflation of one whole grade over a generation so if she wants to beat me she'll need an A*, 2 A's, 4 B's, and a D. She was up for this challenge! Like the OP it's only a bit of friendly banter and I wouldn't say it if her predictions weren't higher than this

Op: regarding you question about the number of exams taken, I think most bog-standard schools back then simply couldn't offer that many due to timetabling/logistical problems. So I think it would have been unusual to have strings of O levels even if pupils were capable of doing them. This, compounded with the marking system of the time, would have made getting strings of As much less likely. Pupils simply took whatever was on offer, to include compulsory Maths and English.

The other common theme running through this thread is 1) pupils leaving at Easter without taking exams and 2) "academic" pupils unable to do typing, woodwork, cooking etc.

It seems that if you were considered to be academic you followed one path; if you were deemed non-academic you followed another.

Both my siblings went to the local ex-secondary modern 11-16 comp.

One got 8As and a B, the other 9 As. They didn't get 10, because you couldn't do 10 subjects. Like me, statisticaly unusual - in the days of CSE / O-level, one of them got a quarter of the entire year group's crop of As at O-level.

Both got straight As at A level (local sixth form college / sixth form of a private school on scholarship).

Both Oxbridge.

(I wiould say that, had we come from a different family, we would not all have gone to Oxbridge. Certainly the elder of my two siblings was the first child from the local comp ever to go there. With 2 Oxbridge graduate parents, however, the path was much, much easier than it would have been using the school advice alone.)

constantlythat was my experience too. I could have done law, (with hindsight) at Uni but it was never suggested. Not for the likes of me!

I should clarify - my parents pulled no strings, called no admission tutors (unlike a friend of mine from school, whse call to the admissions tutor of his old college DID have an effect...), but they simply expected that we would go, if we could get the grades. Lots of childhood trips to admire the architecture, walk the streets, peer into departments....

[oops - whose father's call]

Nobody needs to do more than 9 or 10 subjects at GCSE, in my view!

Do not ask me why 40 years after I chose my O level options I should remember this, but I do. At my school we had to take:

1. English Language
2. Maths
3. French
4. History
5. Geography
6. Either Physics or Biology (see 8. for the opportunity to pick the other one)

Then we had to choose either two or three of the following (most girls took 3):

1. One out of: Latin, Domestic Science (or was it Home Economics?), English Literature, Classical Studies
2. One out of: Biology, Russian, German, Classical Greek, Art
3. One out of: Chemistry, English Literature, Music, Religious Education

I don't know why they insisted on both History and Geography. I would have dropped Geography like a shot if I'd been able to. Anyway, with that exception I really can't fault that list.

I went to a grammar school in the early 80s and got 7 - 3 As, 2Bs and 2Cs. I remember of the 60 pupils that sat history O level only 2 of us got an A. No one got all As. I went on to a good (now RG) uni - doubt I'd get in on those grades now

We had to do
Maths (plus additional maths if we took t a year early)
English language
English literature
French

2 or 3 sciences (taking 1 was just about possible, but vanishingly rare)

RE was encouraged.

Then a pretty free choice, making up 9 or 10 in all. Latin or German, Spanish, History, Geography, Art, Home Ec.

There was a smaller range of subjects than there are now, comparing these to DS's potential options. None of what we now call DT - product design, textiles. No business studies, no economics at O-level, no PE (we had to do at least 4 hours a week of PE ruight up to the end of A-levels, but there was no qualification), no ICT or computing, though we did have a suite of BBCs rto learn coding on.