The DfE needs to stop the farce of compulsory Maths and English GCSE resits

[noblegiraffe]

Another year, another 124,560 students failing their GCSE maths resit and 99672 students failing their GCSE English resit.

Colleges have been saying for years that this government policy is a failure, that students are entered into cycle of resits and failures that does nothing to boost their confidence or enhance their qualifications.

If you get a 3 in maths or English GCSE you have to resit GCSE. If you get a 2 or below, you can take other qualifications like functional maths instead.

The government argues that GCSE is the key to opening doors and as many students as possible should be resitting to get that opportunity. But wouldn’t a qualification that they are actually likely to pass be better?

The resit pass rate for English dropped from 35.5% to 33.1% this year and for maths dropped from 37% to 22.7%. This is not an improving picture!

www.tes.com/news/gcse-results-english-and-maths-pass-rates-drops

To be fair to Gove (what AM I saying!!?) he did not go to a selective school from age 4. But, actually, I think that makes him more elitist as he gained scholarship entry from a very humble backgorund, hence his messianic qualities...

Some kid swill NEVER get the GCSE
ah well, there are other things in life.

Like fucking what? Practically every job or further education now, even vocational, either expects you to either HAVE these qualifications now or to be studying for them. Thats the point. Young people who COULD progress very well according to their individual strengths and talents, are being held back because these strengths are not in maths and english

Thats the point. Young people who COULD progress very well according to their individual strengths and talents, are being held back because these strengths are not in maths and english

Yes they are held back, but not because of maths and English, they are held back because the way maths and English are taught from reception and assessed are designed to fail them. It is because of the way the teaching and the exam are structured. The current GCSEs are statistically calibrated and designed to fail 35%.

Maths and English at the end of compulsory universal education are not and should not be an elitist academic selection, but a basic requirement. Everybody of sound mind should be able to pass them.

I have no support for Gove at all, but whatever his flawed methods, the intention to help the maximum of kids who can to pass GCSE over longer time is better that acceptance of leaving them behind.

Branleuse
It is crazy that many jobs require a GCSE in maths and English when some sort of "functional skills" certificate would be more useful to them AND employers.

My illiterate clients (one on around £25k a year, the other on up to £40k)
are both wizards at estimating volumes and 'knowing' how much rope to put on their abseiling frames.
They can memorise a Health and Safety document enough to pass a verbal test

but knowing which word in a sentence is the adverb or the formula for the area of a circle are why they stopped listening at school.

The current GCSEs are statistically calibrated and designed to fail 35%.
And yet you have repeatedly claimed that better teaching and us getting the hang of learning styles will solve the problem?

I have no support for Gove at all, but whatever his flawed methods, the intention to help the maximum of kids who can to pass GCSE over longer time is better that acceptance of leaving them behind
But you've just acknowledge that results are allocated statistically and there's only a set number of students who will fall abive the 4 boundary.

If a qualification is designed to give a spread of grades on a bell curve, you do realise not everyone can be above average? Or do you subscribe to Gove-ian ideas of maths as well as a Gove-ian need to tell teachers how to do their jobs?

I see we have moved form everyone of average ability to everyone of sound mind : pyschopaths need not apply for GCSEs then.

Who knows piggy.
Everyone can be above average now you know.

I have a free school in my town, set up by a pal of Gove's (now in charge of the New school Network). When he set the school up he boldly stated that ALL students were going to get Cs in maths and English (as a nasty little swipe at the schools he was pinching students from), as you seem to believe possible. This year on their website they state pride and pleausre in a figure of 60% at grade 4 and above. They clearly learnt they were aiming for the impossible.

And, yes, by the time they reach 18 , some more will gain grade 4 at college/ sixth form/ what have you BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.

Talking, surely those clients that can memorise Health and Safety documents and earn £40k are smart enough to memorise the simple formula of the circle. As a matter of fact construction workers need to be able to estimate the surface or volume of a circle based on a radius, how many tiles to order, how much concrete etc, and they probably do.

Maybe they stopped listening because the teachers made them feel like failures by year 3 or so? Those teachers who are not on this thread that focus on the top 'ability tables' from reception and leave behind the others that they consider 'unworthy because they were taught in teacher training that only 65% are smart enough and by definition 35% will never be able to?

I am not suggesting that's anyone on this thread

cakesandtea
I do not know exactly why so many of my clients failed exams at school.
I do know that it is ridiculous to force kids to keep taking exams for which they are entirely unsuited.
And I also know that there are many many jobs for which GCSEs are irrelevant.
Forcing every child to battle on with English and Maths will not help them or the country.

cakes, I honeslty do not believe you will find a teacher anywhere who has been told that at teacher training. If they pick up taht attitude from anywhere , it is from their won schooling, from parents, their own ideologies, the media, Ofsted, the government. it is ceratinly not a feature of liberal minded teacher training which Gove wanted to stamp on

I do agree that at age 25/ 30/40, many adults with life experience would fare better in some aspects of GCSE English (whether they could do the exam is another matter) but I do not agree at all that someone witha 3 in GCSE English is illiterate or unworthy nor that they need to keep going ad inifnitum until they prove their 'worth' to employers who are the ones demanding 4s for jobs that do not really require it.

soooooo many typos. Aaargh.

by definition 35% will never be able to?

if by definition 35% of pupils would never be able to pass maths/English, then no one would ever pass their resits.

And I told you upthread, it’s 30% that get below a 4, not 35%.

Thinking about 'functional literacy'.

I used to teach in a primary school with a very high percentage (over a third in all classes) of Traveller children. There was 1 literate adult on the local large Traveller site, and so our aim was for all children from that community to leave us functionally literate. For the girls, that meant being functionally literate by the end of primary at the latest, because very few went on to secondary schooling, being instead 'home schooled' by their illiterate mothers / aunts / extended families.

At a rough rule of thumb, we found that 'functionally literate' - able to read the basics of letters from the doctor or government, able to read instructions on a bottle of medicine or food packaging, able to read the headlines in a tabloid newspaper, able to read a menu in a pub, able to read a simple story to a younger child, able to write a short note about a child's absence or fill in a simple form - was around what used to be Level 3 in old primary assessments - the level of an able Y2 or a below average Y6. Level 4 was good. If we got them to level 4 we knew we had succeeded, but Level 3 was enough to be the 'reader for the family'.

They were often much better at maths, but even in maths, being level 3-4 would be absolutely fine for functional numeracy - add and subtract money, share amounts equally between several people, read a clock and a timetable, work out elapsed time, weigh and measure.

None of these bear any resemblance, nor are they tested by, current maths and English GCSEs, even at the lowest levels. It seems to me very sad that a grade 1, 2 or 3 shows what someone couldn't do on an inappropriate assessment, not what they could do on an appropriate one.

Here’s what would be ideal:

All students to continue studying maths/English post-16 at an appropriate level.

Students who do not get a 4 can study either GCSE OR a functional qualification.

Employers/colleges/unis told to with the programme and to accept level 2 functional skills as an equivalent to maths/English grade 4 where a student needs to demonstrate literacy/numeracy. If they want to specify GCSE, then they need to say why.

piggy the guy who runs that school now has me blocked on twitter and I’ve no idea why as I’ve never tweeted anything, so I haven’t been able to follow their progress

Estimating the volume or surface area of a sphere isn’t something that grade 4 or even grade 5 students would be required to do. Higher tier only.

its all very well to support children and hope they get their GCSEs, but not by making it so that they cannot do any other subjects or progress further in college if they dont get Maths AND English.
Do you not see that Cakes ?

Hahahahaha! noble ! Maybe he thinks you are me!!

My son HAS functional skills English AND functional skills maths at level one and entry level 3. Its not enough for most courses. Im not even sure I see the point. He also got a 3/D for GCSE English this year (super proud

Do you mean the new guy?? That is odd... he follows everyone on Twitter , including my good self!

I didnt think the Free School results of 4+ were too bad - they are going in the right direction 88% English was impressive (maths let them down)...although like you piggywaspushed not over keen on the old HT and think the school will progress better without him (all talk - I think it took us 5 minutes to look around when it first opened!).
I dont think the policy of resitting English/Maths works either ...some children who may get a 3 in first exam maybe able to get a 4 but some children like Ellie in the video (who my DD knows) will just get demoralized....it is so sad when these children have a real interest but cannot progress any further because of various course constraints. One of my DD's friends DF is part of the SLT at the Sixth Form college and I saw him on results day and his mood was quite somber having seen his own DD get virtually a clean sweep he then had to deal with turning away kids from courses and it certainly hit home - no one in education wants to do this - they all want children to feel good, have self worth and self belief....so lets hope that Ellie's message hits home and the there are changes to the system so that they cater for the many and not the few (the new exams have catered for the few top 1% and failures miserably for over 30% of DC's which surely is not correct).

No oneteen they wern't too bad at all : average in fact, which one would expect from its intake. English results were impressive, true! I agree the school is now under better leadership , but it still has awful delusions of grandeur!

Looks like we are connected oneteen as I also have connections to Ellie, vaguely ! Like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon

Maybe Corbyn with a little bit of help from Angela Raynor may 'outlaw' GCSEs and A levels Instead entrance to Further and Higher Education being based on what class your parents are !

you're parents are .