Exam boards

[powerrangers]

Why are there so many exam boards? Surely it would be fairer if everyone taking a subject took the same exam? There must be a reason schools pick different boards. I read an article that some English schools that had poor results swapped to the Welsh board as it is easier and the school's overall grades went way up. This seems crazy. Why don't they all just sit the same exam?

This is a really good question. I suspect the answer is about money and privatisation, like most things in the UK. I'm from the Netherlands, which has one exam board, run by the Ministry of Education, staffed by experts including but not limited to teachers, and run not for profit. If you sit A level English, every one of your peers will sit exactly the same exam. It makes sense.

The exam boards have to meet the same standards for each subject as set by the Dept of Education. The DoE set the specifications subject content, how it should be taught, the balance of assessment types (exam, cw etc) and so on. They then give accreditation to the specifications designed by each exam board. Exam boards are also monitored for their results to ensure that no exam board moves away from the expected standard.

Gove and Cummings wanted to have just one board.

@Fruttidelbosco the old adage about the stopped clock turns out to be true yet again.

So why have different exam boards?

Interestingly here in NI, non-selective secondaries (as opposed to Grammars) used to use English boards rather than CCEA (N.Irish board) as they were deemed easier to pass for less able students. I don’t know if that’s still the case now, but certainly it used to be.

I can understand differences between the devolved nations in subjects like English/History/Politics/Geography - our cultures are different and certainly here in NI there is generally at least one Irish option to choose from in things like English Lit. In History, our kids will study Irish/N.Irish history, and many will also study local politics. I am imagining it to be the same in the Welsh boards. I can guarantee if there were only English boards on offer that students here and in awakes wouldn’t be able to study so much of their local history, geography or literature.

Why there are so many English boards to choose from, I have no idea!

Because it's about money.

The exam boards also own the publishing companies that supply accredited text books..

Worth flagging that AQA is a charity, not a business, and not a publisher.

The history is that there were lots of universities coming together to form examination boards. Overtime they've merged and we are left with the final results. In the English market there are three main providers of general qualifications - AQA, Pearson Edexcel, and OCR. There are then specific boards in Scotland and Wales.

It's so the teachers can choose a board to suit their pupils. Not all English Lit teachers want to teach Macbeth and The Inspector calls.
My ds is at a selective private school and he is doing so many boards, not just AQA and Edexel. It means the exams are really spread out but in some subjects the content is more challenging. The content of the exams is moderated so that he would get the same grade regardless of the board but he may have enjoyed the content more - he didn't do Macbeth or inspector calls.

Yes I agree with this too!

You don’t have to do Macbeth or An Inspector Calls on AQA either - there’s a wide choice of texts. It’s just that state school have hundreds of copies of those texts and can’t afford to replace them. Even when they ask students to buy the texts, there are always students who can’t afford it - about 1/3 in my school.

Furthermore the school has probably got loads of resources on those texts, lots of teacher expertise and see no point in reinventing the wheel. Although the teacher has taught it before, it’s new to each cohort of students.

As for exam boards - it’s a historic anomaly and ridiculous. Universities would much prefer a common set if knowledge I am sure. Local options such as regional history could be offered in addition to the same ‘core’.

Back in the 70s we were told that WJEC exams were harder than English ones 😊

I am an exams officer and after the day I've just had I would dearly love just one exam board.

As @prawnring says, there used to be a lot more and they have gradually merged. I think it's to produce an illusion of competition, but it leads to some odd tensions; exam boards want to be seen as tough (to be respected) but also easy (so schools will pick them). It's a very odd situation, as grade boundaries are not entirely within their control.

I teach a tiny subject at A-level which is only offered by one exam board. That does simplify my life!

Yes, but then you'd have to deal with AQA for every exam with all their staff 'working from home' (ie, never answering the phone or putting electronic copies up in time for the exam to start).

But the dedicated exams Parcelforce guys they use are very, very good and helpful...

😱😱😱😂😂 You are so right @NeverDropYourMooncup

Exam boards have to cover the same content in their specs as prescribed by the DoE. For the technical subject that I taught there was very little difference between exam boards.

There are differences. Some boards may have slightly harder questions but lower grade boundaries. For example, Eduqas english has more tricky and open-ended questions than AQA but the boundaries are much lower

I agree that one board would make a lot more sense – it would also save some bother when (if) students move schools mid-GCSE. As others say, the main reasons are historical. I took Cambridge board O-levels (old) but for a couple of mine we did AEB as it was reputed to be easier. I am not sure if that is what moves schools to pick one board or another.

I have always taught AQA for my subject (MFL) but there is also an Edexcel option; tbh it is pretty similar so not much to choose. It might be that a school has the AQA textbooks for example, so why change? IGCSE MFL is very different, not least bc it is intended for a range of native tongues (rather rather than only English speakers) so the entire paper is in target language and there is no translation into or from English (for obvious reasons). For that latter reason I would always advise taking GCSE rather than IGCSE in MFL, as I think translation is a key skill.

Re English and @tennissquare whose son’s private school does another board (which one?) which offers more options than Macbeth and AIC – of course there are many other options on the AQA syllabus too. There are about half a dozen Shakespeare plays to choose from and a dozen or so 20th cent texts, including plays, novels and short stories. Obviously schools tend to choose to teach the same texts for the reasons given by @theresnolimits. Makes sense really. But my DD did R&J not Macbeth and Animal Farm not AIC, even tho she did AQA. Also exams are no more spread out at the private school which chooses other boards than they are at any school. Exams have been more spread out in the last two years as a Covid concession (in 2019 DS2 had up to 10 in a week).

AFAIK only Cambridge IGCSE has exams at a different time – otherwise pretty much everyone who did (for example) French GCSE or IGCSE, AQA, Edexcel, Eduquas, Pearson IGCSE, sat an exam or exams on Tuesday morning. The various boards have to schedule at the same time or there would be endless clashes.

There used to be rather more exam boards; a lot have merged. The history is that exam boards were originally run by the universities to run entrance exams. For instance, I did exams set by the "Joint Matriculation Board", set up by Manchester/Liverpool/Leeds Unis, and later also Sheffield & Birmingham. That merged into the Northern Examinations and Assessment Board and later into AQA. Back in the 1980s, schools tended to use the same board for everything, and they did vary quite a bit; for instance, calculus was in some O-level maths syllabuses but not others. When GCSE came in, the syllabus got more standardised across boards, and this also happened at A-level. There began to be a lot more competition between boards, within the constraints of the agreed syllabus content.

By the way, I think the lack of variety in English Lit is rather more down to schools than exam boards. When DD did a unit on autobiography for English language, the teacher said it was their one chance to study something that wasn't by a dead white male. I looked up the literature syllabus, and there were plenty of options that weren't by dead white males. They just don't have as many teaching materials already in circulation, so a lot of schools tend to stick to the same books year in, year out.