Dumbing down of A levels?

[Happygardening]

My DH went to St Paul's boys a long time ago admittedly but it has always been very very selective. He reckons when he was there out of 150 boys only about 15 (10%) got three A's at A level and those boys were considered to be unbelievably bright often boarding on the dysfunctional. Allowing for poor memory on his part lets say 25 got three A's so how can this be accounted for; FT Secondary School 2011 Percentage A/S you will need to search it as I don't know how to link it directly on here! Apparently 94% of the boys got A/A's although their web site states its only a mere 89%. No one is going to convince me that a levels have not been dumbed down.

I get the point completely Hg but at schools such as St Pauls 30 years ago I should think 50% might well have been achieving As or Bs, which would approximate to the A*/ A measure now I should think (broad brush).

I agree that only a few in each cohort achieved three As back then but very few indeed have achieved three As or more last year or this. Back then far more scientists managed a full house than those studying arts and humanities and that still seems to be the case. I happen to think the threshold for As is set high and any student achieving them deserves real respect - that's just my take. As for the straight runs: I stand back in awe.

I'm not certain that all of the Etonians currently starring in Made in Chelsea would have made it into Winchester. Idle observation .

Cross posted.

My DH whose memories may not be correct or perhaps who maybe only went around with those who didn't particularly apply themselves recalls only two of his many friends getting three a's and one others 2A's and a B.
Perhaps now those who dont apply themselves are weeded out after their GCSEs. The concept of not getting high enough grades to go into the 6th form certainly didn't exist thirty years ago.
I'm affraid I live under a bit of a stone so I dont know Made in Chelsea would I find it interesting?

What is the fixation with St Pauls?

amerryscot - I was interested to read your post on the first page about UMS and that A level students must get at least 50% raw scores ( hope I've got that right ) to get an E .

I've struggled as a parent to understand my DS's marks ( sciences so practicals and coursework as well as exams ) .
I feel I should have given him more credit for his C and even his E grade .
I wish it were easier to follow - I'm very math phobic having been told many moons ago that "it would be a waste of the entrance fee " to take Maths O level ,and find talk of bell curves and raw scores hard to get my head round

Im not fixated with St Paul's just shocked that in the recently published FT league table they came top with 94% getting A and A * star grades at A level. I am very familiar with how the school was 30 years ago and am using this as my example for the possible dumbing down of A levels or trying to find another feasable explanation to account for this extraordinary result. There are plenty of others with very similar results but I personally do not l know what they were like 30 years ago so feel less able to make a fair comparison.

Ginger, definitely congratulate your DS for his C.

A-level passes are from A-E, so a C is right in the middle of this band.

GCSE 'real' passes are fro A-C, so a C at A-level has the same kudos as a B at GCSE (progressed on by a year or two).

I am unhealthily fixated by Made in Chelsea Hg, along with my DC, and find the idea of some of the characters passing their CE mesmerising to say the least.

I don't think anyone in education would deny that there has been grade inflation over the past thirty years so if you simply move the boundaries, using the new A* as the old A or even A/ B, then the world looks the same.

I can't see that there's a huge issue.

A simple shift in boundaries is not what is happening, though. It is far more complicated than that.

It may be well be more complicated but the fact remains that the kids aren't getting stupider and the same sort of kids get to the same sort of universities (even given the demise of grammars), so probably all is reasonably well.

"to say that it is because teaching is better nowadays is nonsense"

Teaching is way better imo, not so much because the teachers are better, but they have so much better resources available to them. The internet is a simply awesome resource: computer packages to suit all learning styles are readily available, endless past papers are a click away, mark schemes, examiners reports etc all online. Then computers mean lessons don't have to be boring chalk & talk all the time, we have electronic whiteboards, can hook up laptop presentations easily, even the text books are bright, colourful and appealing compared to those of yesteryear. Much, much easier for students to engage with learning these days imo, so unsurprising that they perform better. Modular courses and retake opportunities also have a big impact on results too.

I think children are a bit brighter on average these days too. Flynn effect is well documented, possibly caused by more early exposure to multi-media.

There may have been some dumbing down too, but the issue is much more complex than at first sight.

Thank you gelatinous for posting such an interesting reply. What concerns me is that these changes in teaching are not reflected in universities in particular the endless retaking exams etc to get the desired mark. Does this account for why I know of so many who seem to drop out.
What is the Flynn Effect?

Grades should get better at any exam, teachers are given examiner's reports on every year to explain how to do better at it. That's a legitimate process by the way, not the illegitimate handing out the answers that that exam board was caught doing

I did A -levels in 1987 and another in 2003. They were very different subjects though. I felt that the 2003 one did require less depth in the subject, but also felt that the exam papers gave me nowhere to hide - there was NO area of the syllabus that i could just ignore, whereas in 1987 I could pick and choose questions to allow me to bodyswerve certain less preferred bits of the work. So less depth but better coverage, was my experience.

A family friend is a universiry lecturere and has been for the last 20 years. He says that children are no brighter now than they were 20 years ago. He also says that some university courses were extended to 4 years to cover the work that wasn't covered at A level.

Lecturer. D'oh!

HappyGardening you still haven't seemed to take on board the fact that grading of A'levels changed totally when they moved from only allowing certain percentages of pupils to get each grade, to grading on set marks.

For instance when I sat A'level Chemistry for my exam board, there was 2 marks between a grade B and a grade D. You had to score in those two marks to get a C.
There also was competition between exam boards in the "old days", and schools did choose based on which board they thought would get their pupils the best grades. I have also heard of one school where the top sets sat one board and the bottom another (sometimes pupils in the bottom sets out performed the top ones).

A'levels have changed (but then they always did change). There is a huge debate about what kind of education we need nowadays. There are a lot of people who argue that even the traditional 3 years at University is a model that has limited usefulness nowadays.

30 years ago, you could get into university courses in Medicine and Law with grade B's, an offer of BBC was seen as quite stiff, CCC was quite normal and the only course that required AAA was Veterinary Science.

Thirty years ago Durham required at least one A grade at A Level for its Law course and this was an inflexible rule.

Yellowstone - sorry I meant you didn't need AAA or A*AA, but ABB or AAB was quite normal. (A friend who was ofered only one offer for medical school, and that was AAA, was considered unfortunate.)
My degree requires (roughly, courses have changed) ABB, the standard offer was CCC in my day, and they let people in with less than that.

I don't think it was normal in fact mummytime, not thirty years ago. At that time it was the only department in that university asking for any A grades at all: History, English etc were all BBC.

That's a bit niche I know, but Durham is quite a good example of a highish end university and how its offer grades have changed. For entry for 2012 its standard offer for Law, History, English is A*AA.

A long time lecturer who's been up there in the History department for all those years says the standard of students is the same as it ever was: no better, no worse. The difference in degree classifications is striking though - way, way more Firsts and 2:1's, the whole profile of the results board has changed.

Oh well, at Birmingham University in the Commerce department there used to only be a First awarded roughly every 10 years. There was celebration when someone got one whilst I was there, I don't think anywhere awards them that rarely anymore.

happygardening The Flynn effect is the observed upward drift of average IQ scores over generations. It's not a huge drift, but it's there. I wouldn't expect it to be large enough to be noticeable by university lecturers and their peceptions are going to be much more skewed towards how well students are actually prepared for their courses rather than by their absolute intelligence (and I agree modular may well not be the way forward here). Also, since there are more university places available these days, it's entirely possible that that the average IQ of students joining a particular course these days could be lower (even thought the generation average is higher), since the most able are spread out across more courses/establishments than they used to be.

mummytime I haven't taken anything on board yet I'm reading peoples opinions experiences and hoping that those who know a lit more than I will I suppose reassure me that A levels have not been dumbed down because I will find it worrying for my children's future if they have. I hear on the radio and read I the papers that they have but was hop

Bloody computer! Was hoping for hard evidence that this is or isn't the case. I do find the concept of retaking the exam till you get he grade you want worrying and don't know again if this is a regular occurrence or not. And as Ive already said these teaching methods may improve results. But its not being continued into university. I have evidence both anecdotal and hard stats re students dropping out of the more academic courses (all requiring A grades) and wonder what the cause of this is teachinv methods dull text books too much chalk and board or is it he "dumbing down"?
I know of someone involved in admissions for medicine they have a high drop out rate and some are just not academically up to it he genuinely feels that an A grade is not a reflection of academic ability. That schools spoon feed the correct answers and thats how these high grades are achieved.

I think everyone agrees that more As are awarded nowadays, and of course A* grades.

The important to thing to know is why there are more top grades.

I've given some of the reasons I think there are - better teaching, more awareness of marking criteria, UMS profiles.

I don't think competition between the awarding bodies is that significant (at least, not at GCE level). The DfE has a very tight hold on A-level specifications. TBH, when awarding bodies are selling their qualifications, it is really about how to make the teacher/school life easier.

Retakes obviously increase the top grades - that is the whole point of them. I don't think you can read in too much though. A complete A2 qualification has 4 sittings, and IME, this involves retaking an AS module or two in the January of the UIV. At my school, and at the school my DS is at, we don't generally do January modules - and if we do, they are for retakes. The vast majority of students have one go at their exams at the end of LIV and UIV.

As for universities (and employers, for that matter), they do report a lack of basic skills (formal written English, arithmetic). I don't think the exam system is to blame for this, really. Or at least, it can't really solve it. The most recent moves on spelling, punctuation and grammar, put the responsibility into just a handful of wordy subjects. If a student is doing all Sciences, their SPG is no longer going to be formally assessed. As a teacher, I do worry about basic skills and try to do my bit as much as I can to develop and reinforce them.

University students were from something like the top 3% in my day. Nowadays, it is more like 50%. There are relatively weak students in universities now, and this will lead to some exasperation among lecturers. They do have to involve themselves in areas they wouldn't have in the past. It won't do them any harm.

UMS profile?
Do you think amerryscot the IB is better and encourages better spelling punctuation etc.