Anyone remember 16+ exams in the 1980s?

[Innisfree]

I was talking to my DD last night about o levels and GCSEs. I did o levels, in 1987, which I think was the last year. But in maths I remember doing a different exam called 16+ which gave me an o level at Grade C. I’d missed a few months of school due to glandular fever and was never fully able to catch up in maths. I suspect I was a borderline candidate as a result. I think this must be why my school suggested this alternative exam. Can’t find out much about it online. Does anyone else remember 16+?

I did my O levels in 1986 and did 16+ Maths.

I also did an AO level in Human Biology - I loved it.

I did 16+ in most subjects (still did O Level maths as we were the set likely to go onto A Level, Eng Lit and an MFL with no 16+). They were fine. Lots of coursework for English Language and Art which wouldn't work now because of plagiarism worries. History was great and quite experimental (with coursework too).

If we were part of a trial, that was never revealed to us. It didn't make any difference to how we were taught.

That's really interesting as I took 16+ maths in 1984 and got ungraded. Years later in my 20s I took GCSE Maths as I needed it for entry on a course and passed with a B with very little prep. Always puzzled me how I became OK at Maths in the interim years.

We were told the one I did in 1977 was a trial but it didn't make any difference to the teaching that I was aware of. They didn't mix up the gcse and cse sets for it.

We were told it was a trial. Funnily enough I was talking to my DS about it recently and he asked if parents complained about us all being used as guinea pigs, but no one seemed to give it a thought. It would be different today!

And yes, it did make a huge difference to how we were taught. English language was suddenly continuous assessment, we had spoken assessments too, had to give talks on a chosen subject, field questions and also give readings from our own chosen texts to the class. We had to compile a file of creative writing, it was a lot of work. I hated it, there was a lot of parental input with some pupils and my parents didn't have the knowledge to help. The spoken stuff was awful too - favouritism towards the less accented pupils.

That's awful. And for @Danceswithweasels. I wonder what was going on. (I guess I was lucky to do the O Level for maths.)

I liked the coursework/continuous assessment because I hate exams. It was so much better than the 90 or less minutes of creative writing my DC have to do with a load a rules about what they can say. But there were teachers who marked down students they didn't like or just disagreed with. Fortunately, it it was moderated anonymously elsewhere, but that's not a perfect system.

I did my O levels and A levels in the 1970s. Our school made us do CSE maths and English ( as well as in my case O levels as the brighter girls did ) as a lot of girls failed the much harder O level.We didn't do anything called 16+. We did do a lower sixth "AO" level in history as some girls left after lower sixth and it was good if they at least had a qualification from doing that one year of sixth form.

Yeah, CSE biology here in 86. Got Grade 1 so awarded it as an O Level C. Remember my school's attitude was that it was for the less able but don't think that was right if it was a trial...

Gosh, going down memory lane now. I was 'First Division' in all subjects but because I was taking 3 languages at O Level and so was deemed 'good' at languages, I was not allowed also to be 'good' at science hence the CSE route. So different these days!

I taught 16+ back in the early 80's mainly for children who the school didn't think might get C at O'level or for more practical subjects that had classes which were a mixture of abilities. All coursework and for us lots of small assessed tasks.

I remember them - we did 16+ history and chemistry -& I did them in 1981.

If I recall correctly, your first paper was as marked, and if you reached a particular threshold, your second paper was marked to give your O level grade, but under the threshold, it was marked to give a CSE grade - I think our school may have been part of the trials or an early adopter.

I did 16+ for English in 87, which involved coursework as a trial for GCSE. I think it was Eng lit. My other subjects were O levels.

Everyone in our year did 16+ for English lit. (Grammar school) I remember it being a trial for GCSE as it had coursework.