GCSEs in the 1980s - how many exams

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As my DS is currently sitting his exams I was trying to remember how many exams per subject I had.

I took them in 1989 and I certainly don't remember having three geography papers.

I know we had some coursework in Geography and Music but can't remember if we had any in other subjects?

I did mine in 89 and 90. I'm sure there were min 2 papers for everything - 3 for languages (listening, writing, reading) plus a spoken/oral test. There was coursework for some subjects- music, English, RE (as I recall), but definitely some subjects with no coursework (maths). I can't remember about History, and I'm sure there was none for languages. Science had a practical element I think, but I still think there were 2 exams.

I don't recall them being that long though - I'd say max 90 mins.

was this 1989? I definitely did an english paper (I saw one of the papers in my school stuff when we moved house - i must have stolen it!) and a geography one. I will search the garage later as this is now bugging me!

1990 -can't remember any of the exam boards though

I have moderated GCSE and A level coursework and this statement doesn't work in practice. In theory you would expect it to help students who work well in class and aren't great at exams. However in practice the marks obtained for coursework depended more on the school and how well they prepared their students than the performance of pupils themselves.

From vague memories, I'd say a couple of papers for most subjects, maybe 3 for Maths/sciences, and they were generally longer duration, maybe 2 or 3 hours? I was quite surprised when my DS did his GCSEs 3 years ago and some were only 60-90 minutes long?

English was born 100% Coursework for all exam boards/syllabuses.
I think the exam's were longer (3 hours for some possibly)

I did Midland for maths and Latin and Southern for everything else in 1988. (First year of GCSEs.) I think there were two maths exams,but I might be misremembering. French had a lot - oral,listening, and I can't remember if reading/ writing were separate. We had separate English lang and lit, and an oral exam which was graded separately. There was coursework for English and Latin, and history, i think. Art was 100% coursework, no exam. I don't remember coursework for maths or chemistry, nor French, but I might just be misremembering.

There's a chance I have my exam timetable still in one of the boxes upstairs... (I'm not going to look, though.)

*was Not 100% coursework

I think most of hour exams were 90 minutes to 2 hours - it was A-level and degree where the 3 hour hand-cramping ones came in.

I did nearly the last O Levels and it was 2 papers per subject.

one other thing is that I am sure we sat them over the course of just 2 weeks.

In 1989 most of the exams were paper exams, it changed in 1990 to having mostly or fully course work.

Different exam boards did things differently. There were lots more exam boards then, there are fewer now.

I took mine in 1989. English Lit was 100% coursework (10 essays). English Language was about 30% coursework. Pretty sure it was one paper per subject. I took 9 and got all As. All downhill from there....

I’ve actually just found my exam printout from the exam board !

eng Lit one exam
eng Lang two exams
French three exams
Geog one exam
history two exams
maths two exams
physics three exams
RS four exams
music three exams

coursework also for Eng lit, Eng Lang, Geog, history, physics and RS

STARTED 17 May 1989 and ended 19 June 1989

similar to now i guess !

You can't really compare the original GCSEs to the modern grade 9-1 qualification as they were structured so differently. Gove popped on his rose-tinted hindsight specs and hurled us back to an O Level style exam-only system, removing all coursework because he thought it was unfair, and anyway, grading 2 years of work on 4 weeks worth of exams at the end never did him any harm.

Look at O Level comparisons as that's what they more closely resemble.

I did 19 exams over 9 subjects plus coursework. DS is doing 22 exams over 10 subjects no coursework. Quite similar really. I actually did more physics papers than he’s doing

you have to remember that the first two years of GCSEs (1988 and 1989) weren’t weighted to coursework. That came from 1990 onwards.

I took mine in 91. It was a mix of some subjects were 100% course work, some 100% exam, some 50/50 and some moduler so took an exam at the end of each module.
I remember it as
English - 100% Coursework
Maths 50/50 - loads of coursework and only one actual exam paper at the end I think.
Science - modules were 6 weeks long with exam at the end of each plus a final exam paper of general knowledge science and all the exams added up.to get final grade.
Humanities - 6 week modules with exam at end of each. I don't remember a final exam
French - 100% exam but 4 different ones (reading, writing, speaking, listening)
Religious Studies - 100% exam - possibly 2 papers.
French and RS I did badly in. English, Maths and Humanities I did great in.
Science I did better than expected because I didn't have to remember so much that was taught over a year before because I had already been tested on it.
Conclusion.... coursework and modules were my thing.
I think I would do terrible if I had to do GCSEs now.

My sister did hers in 88 (the first year group to do them). She had more coursework than I had 3 years later.
I suppose it varried between exam boards. Another school in my town used different exam boards for some subjects. For English they did have exam papers where my school didn't.

8! Wow! I was forced to sit 13 GCSEs in the 2000s, some of them were 4+ papers each. Plus coursework. It was horrendous.

I sat mine in 1993. I remember my English Literature was 100% coursework and my English Language was 50% coursework and 50% exam. My coursework was really good so I had a low pass before I even sat the exam.

I can’t remember exactly what the rest were but coursework was a small amount if at all, maybe 25%. Some were definitely all exam like science and maths.

English Language - 100% coursework + oral exam
English Literature - 100% coursework
Graphics - 50% coursework
Business Studies - 100% coursework
History - 1 exam
Maths Higher paper - 1 exam
Physics - 1 exam
Economics - 1 exam

A level English Lit was 50% coursework as well in 1991.

O levels 1983 I did 12 - most were 2 papers (History for example was an hours multiple choice and later a 2 hour essay paper, Latin/Greek a translation paper and then an essay paper. French was an aural in person with the examiner, an essay and translation paper and a listening paper - comprehensions and dictation). Music was the worst - an hours aural, 2 hours of harmony and 2 hours of essays. Maths 2 papers one with and one without a calculator - I think there was one paper for each English though.

I was first year of GCSEs in 1988 - super-selective grammar. We all sat 9 (took RE O level a year early) we didn't have any coursework in any subject except Art.

Exam boards were a mix of Midland Examining Group, Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board.

One child in the year got 7 'A' grades... much more normal to get mainly B grades and a couple of As.

That’s so odd as we the same GCSE year in 1989.

i did Midland examining Group for all bar music which was Southern board

If you're interested in O levels too, I did mine in the 1970s. I did 9 subjects and my parents had to pay for one of them because the school policy was to pay for a maximum of 8. We did English Language a year early, so only 8 subjects at the same time.

I'd say in general it was two exams per subject, but they were quite long ones (some exceptions). No exams had any element of multiple choice.

There was no coursework for anything I did except art (it would have been the same for subjects now covered by DT). For art, we had to submit a portfolio of work and an 'exam piece' produced in response to a particular prompt provided by the exam board. An external examiner came out to look at these and to ask us questions about our work, plus some technical questions. There was also an examined (and timed) drawing element - we had to choose between a life model, a bowl of fruit type still life and something like a kitchen appliance.

Languages had 5 exams, but most were pretty short. We had dictation, aural comprehension (using tape recorder), a written translation, an (in-person) oral and a piece of creative writing (we would be given a series of pictures and had to write a story based on what was going on).

All my A levels had 2 papers lasting 3 hours each.