Scrapping GCSEs

[gelatinous]

Daily mail article here.

Good idea or not?

"GCSES ARE too easy. How anyone cannot get at least a C is unbelievable."

People say this all the time. I actually don't know if true or not. What makes you think that?

My dp has a physics PhD and he was pretty impressed by the level of maths and physics dd has been doing. History and English- my subjects- looked OK to me, although I don't think the English involved enough different texts. I can't actually remember whether I did more at O level, because I sometimes misremember a level stuff as O level.

I sat O'levels in the 80's
My DD is currently sitting IGCSE's - I fail to see how they are dummed down. They are just as robust - in fact more so.

Differences between IGCSE and GCSE AQA Chemistry is astounding - IGCSE is far more complex

Yes, my dp did NatSci at Cambridge with a fair amount of maths and finds dd's maths questions challenging quite often. They do things he didn't do until A level, actually.

I think English GSCE and A levels are pretty crap though, I must admit, and I do agree with the report yesterday that said emotional response was prized too highly over critical reading. This is why I get students endlessly banging on about what the reader might think in the reader's own mind and how the text makes the reader feel, but can't do close reading for toffee.

Seeker, take GCSE maths for example, to gain a C its just basic maths skills, even my 10 year old got most of the questions right on a practice paper.

And what did you have to get a C at O level?

I do heartily agree that there should be a SINGLE exam board - nay, exam - for the core subjects. It's no surprise that there has been "a race to the bottom" with exam boards wooing schools with how better results can be achieved with their particular GCSE.

And it ever thus. I remember in the 1980s my school boasting that they chose the hardest board for each subject . They said that universities knew . Yeah, right.

I have a DD who will be in the first cohort for the new exams.
I also work in education.
I was one of the first years to take GCSEs.

For the sake of the students taking them I am terrified about the new proposals.

I remember when taking my GCSEs the teachers were unprepared, this had a direct and detrimental effect on results.

The government is trying to push these proposals through so quickly it will be very difficult to
i) set up a new examination board (or merge some)
ii) write the syllabus anew
iii) ensure the new syllabus is a viable working model
iv) then roll this out to ensure all examination boards, teachers, exam markers and other professionals know the new syllabus thoroughly not just having read the booklets (of which there are invariably many)

I would say it takes 3 years for a course to run to find the 'snags' in it and make the tweaks needed.
So my daughter and thousands like her will be an educational guinea pig.

Also, the GCSEs were changed last year anyway!
There has been a phased reduction in 'modules'.
In the new syllabus' I've seen the courses are already more challenging and the testing more robust.

I, along with many education professionals I know agree that the GCSEs which were running until recently needed improvement in terms of challenge and reward for more able students.

But the reintroduction of a O level style exam will be a nightmare.

"GCSES ARE too easy. How anyone cannot get at least a C is unbelievable."

bijou that's fantastic that it's really easy peasy for your 10 year old. Lucky you and lucky DC.

I have a below average 15 yo DD who has just sat maths GCSE in Y10; I wish you luck telling her that it was that easy. or do you think that some DC are just stupid?

But boschy you can't make exams easier just so some DC don't feel bad. It serves no one.

I have twins. O understand how one doesn't want a child to feel more inferior than the other.

But the current GCSEs are just not sufficiently challenging. This is why some schools now insist that in order to sit an A level one must have at least an A or A* in it. Bs and Cs are dismissed. Which is outrageous.

Chatting to a couple of year 11s recently about their Spanish orals and they called it 'a joke'. They were told the questions in advance .

but no one's trying to make them easier are they?

they're trying to create even earlier differentiation between academic/non-academic, without offering any solutions/possible routes to those who are not academic at the 'right' stage of their school career.

Now there I agre with you boschy. There is insufficient avneues for less academic pupils to take. Many are still forced into doing GCSEs. And to make sure they don't fail en masse we have made it much easier to pass.

C grade GCSE maths includes stuff like simultaneous equations, plotting quadratic and cubic graphs, expanding double brackets, Pythagoras, area and circumference of circles and so on. I'm impressed at a 10 year old who can do these but I wouldn't label them 'basic maths skills'.

Schools that insist on students getting an A or A* at GCSE to do A level are doing so because they want to make their A level results look better. A levels go from A to E. Someone who gets a B at GCSE should generally fall somewhere in that range, and if they don't, then schools perhaps should look to their teaching.

But Fallen what is the point of an E at A level?
Surely A levels are for those who are taking their academic studies further?

An dif you only managed a C at GCSE, despite working reasonably hard, wouldn't you find the jump too A level far too taxing?

I know pupils hwo have got an A* at GCSE, only to find the jump quite a surprise. Those who only got a C must surely have no aptitude for the subject?

You used to be able to go to Uni with grade Es. When I took A levels back in 1991, I only needed Ds and Es for a degree in teaching, Business Studies also accepted Ds and Es. It was only the academic subjects such as History and English Literature that required Cs.

Over half of the exams my Y11 DD has sat have been IGCSE exams. These have been just as hard as my old O levels were.

They was no coursework and no modules. It was all linear with end of course exams.

So tougher exams are available already- but maintained schools in the UK are not allowed to sit them.

In the 1970s, yes, I know, prehistoric times, I knew a medic who got an E for Physics A level, and was offered a place when he reapplied in his re-sit year. Without having to re-sit. [Re-sits were not uncommon then, but As were very.] So at some time in the past, you could even go to Med School with an E. Now most can't go even with 4A*s, and Maths A level is considered by many to be easier than Physics, which it wasn't then. And Biology which was essential then has become not so, now. At least Chemistry has retained its core status, but at a much higher grade requirement.

I don't even try to understand it. Thankfully universities will work out how to adjust their requirements to suit the day.

State schools have access to iGCSEs now. They get to choose whether to offer them. I can't see any good reason academically not to switch to them for the sciences, some MFLs, English and Maths, but someone will probably come along and explain why.

If the old system was so good, why did the thatcher government abandon them? They were designed for a very different education system to now. It's children would do CSEs.

A levels are not only for students who are taking their academic studies further. When I did my A levels (1989), about half of my sixth form went on to university. There are more now I suspect, because tertiary education has expanded.

We have students who do A levels because at 16, they do not have firm career plans, want to stay in education and spend two years studying something they are interested in. I don't think that is a bad thing. And in fact, there will be more and more of them as participation in post 16 education is being widened.

Biology hasn't been essential for medicine since at least the late 80s (so for people who did O levels first time around).

I'm worried about the speed of change. How on earth are they going to get this through the government processes, write new curricula and the new exams, test the new exams and communicate the changes effectively in time for schools to implement these changes? I can imagine Heads of Departments across the country weeping with their heads on the tables with the thought of this.

Change does need to happen, I don't believe the system is rigorous enough at the moment, but this is far too quick a pace.

just saw lizbee said what I said (but far more eloquently!)

Maybe GCSE's do need a shake up, though some (Art & Design for instance) seem to be a lot more rigourous than the O Levels they replaced.

I have major worries that there will be chaos for the first few years sitting the new exams - and that it will be hellish for the teachers putting them through them.

That said, I sat the last year of O Levels, but having taken a gap year, I was at university with people who'd sat the first GCSE's & it didn't seem to have traumatised them. Then again, most had been to private schools or grammars (more so than in previous years as it happens), so perhaps then (as now) they were more likely to be cushioned against the upheaval.

I fear that most of the chaos will be in comprehensive schools, where there's a wider range of attainment, and that it will hit the middling pupils worst.