Is school harder now than it used to be?

[Notcontent]

I was at secondary school in the late 80s and it was not in the UK (Australia) so hard to make a direct comparison. I was pretty bright and did really well at school. But now I have a dd who is in year 9 at an independent school (not that this makes much difference I don’t think) and it seems to me that a lot of the work - maths, science and English in particular - is of quite a high standard - stuff I don’t think I did until much later.

The mark scheme accounts for performance at that level, hence 9-1.

I would argue for anyone who would find a grade 1-2 an academic challenge and achievement shouldn't be sitting that course.

There's a massive difference between someone attaining a 1/2, and someone who would be successful if they happened to manage to get a 1/2 and who would have to work hard to attain a 1/2.

For example the bottom band for Engoish Literature says:
At the top of the level, a candidate’s response is likely to be narrative and/or
descriptive in approach. It may include awareness of the task and provide
appropriate reference to text; there will be simple identification of method with
possible reference to subject terminology. Simple comments/responses to
context, usually explicit.

It isn't asking much, which is why if a candidate is really struggling to access that level I'd question a school entering a student

I did not take exams here but the things that have struck me are the amount of exam papers taken in total at GCSE e.g science 6, maths 3, meaning they can sit approximately 20-30 papers depending on what subjects they are doing. It just seems excessive and more of a mental endurance test than anything.

I think the pressure on schools get passed onto students more with lots of compulsory-optional-revision-sessions-meets-lessons, but I also think intervention culture isn't helpful for promoting students who can cope with pressure and independence.

Also this. The schools seem to give out confusing messages with pressure to achieve and attend optional before school, after school and break time revision sessions for Y11s while also having to offer more councillors and things like meditation and mindfulness sessions for increasingly stressed and students. Don't get me wrong it's great that schools are trying to help kids to achieve but there also needs to be balance.

I did o levels in 1986 and DD did GCSEs last year. I think the standard was reasonably similar, though I don't remember having to learn quite as many examples with facts and figures for geography as she did. The science syllabus has changed quite a bit in terms of what is included, but is probably of similar standard. Also, we only had an A as the top grade, and a think a bigger proportion of kids got As then than get 9s now, which may put more pressure on the competitive kids.

@LolaSmiles just to say that 'low ability is not level 3/4. That is pretty average. I teach pupils with 1/2 and lower - they really struggle to read the questions - and the text in is nigh on impossible for them. What we find is they prefer to write nothing and get zero than try and fail - it sounds better. It is too hard for a lot of pupils

Between 4-6 is average. 3 is lower ability.

Students who would be academically excelling to get a grade 1/2 and would find it hard to achieve that level shouldn't be being entered for the paper in my opinion. School should be looking at functional skills courses, or identifying them in KS3 (given literacy levels that low don't appear overnight) and doing entry level work with them long before they get to sitting GCSE Level papers, otherwise the school is setting staff and students up to fail.

Some schools in my area give a different KS4 route for students working that low if early intervention hasn't worked.

The difficulty of the paper 2 language texts are questionable at times, but overall the questions across the Lang/lit courses are reasonable for 15/16 year olds.

Sometimes I think it's easy to forget the amount of fudging that went on with controlled assessments and coursework to get the magic C for students in order to boost what would be a weak exam.

Lola they are OK for average pupils not for all. All pupils have to sit the GCSE English for progress 8 - functional skills does not count. We do intervention from Year 7 and if you think that some pupils can get beyond a Grade 1/2 you teach in a very high achieving school and have no clue about the realities.

Do you not teach any dyslexic pupils who cannot access the exam texts, or pupils with slow processing? Or pupils who can't read at all? Or who are EAL?

Yes, functional skills doesn't count for p8, but it does work quite well as a stepping stone to the GCSE and gives some buy in to intervention along the way so they've at least got something.

I'll PM you a summary of what we do.
We have students in all those categories.

It probably depends on how far back we are talking. If we are talking 60s and early 70s, then Latin, Greek and parts of math (calculus) would have been harder, but much of the sciences wouldn't have even been discovered/invented yet - especially coding for primary schools would have been impossible, and the Computer Science GCSE certainly looks like Chjnese to me (and I would argue that Mandarin is harder than Latin but now taken more often than the latter). My dd read books about climate change in reception, featuring the formula for photosynthesis. I think I learned that first in year 10. Also, in my days it didn't really matter how well you did. I went to Oxford with AABB and a C in my GCSEs. Today 1 B at A level and a C at GCSE would mean no chance at a place at leading university ( if there are no mitigating circumstances). Thst's a lot of pressure, as a bad day and a couple of silly mistakes can have life changing consequences.

I get the impression exams have been watered down. I think for one A-level maths exam this year you only needed 55% for an A.

Way That's not watering down, that's because the content is harder! (But they still wanted the same pass rate).

Wayland
The pass mark tells you nothing.
The content is more difficult.
Ideally, if I remember correctly from something I read on assessment, a well designed assessment shouldn't have everyone getting super high marks.

So in my subject the grade boundaries are lower, but that's because what's required to get into the highest band for English Literature is significantly more difficult than before. There's no way it would be reasonable to expect loads of students to access those highest bands, but they are there to stretch and appropriately reward the very brightest. I've called back some of my papers in recent years where students have got 90+% on the paper and what they have had to do to get that mark is exceptional for a 15 year old.

Science is much more advanced. Other subjects include more stuff that was taught later in the past now being studied at a younger age.

History, RE and most subjects seem to be less memorising facts and more understanding and application of the knowledge.

Maths seems more applied.

There is less repetition of the syllabus. There seems more focus on consolidating ideas and teaching in more organised, well thought out plans.

Everything seems better taught. Teachers seem to have better knowledge of how to teach and their subject area. Students are expected to be more independent with homework and need to search online for answers. There is more interaction in classrooms. Children are asked to share their opinions.

The subject areas are taught in a more interesting way. I do think lower ability students struggle more and find the exams difficult. Higher ability students seem to thrive more.

It is irritating reading posts that say yes it is way easier.
The new GCSE curriculum is very very hard, and much more rigorous than mine ever were. Unless you have a child that is doing them right now, or you are teaching then how can you even have a view?!

They are extremely hard op, we are shocked at the level esp in Maths, and yes it is very advanced. I have bright kids and it is even testing my husband at time, and he is a mathematical whizz.

I feel for our children, especially those that struggle anyway. It must be a nightmare for them.

I get the impression exams have been watered down. I think for one A-level maths exam this year you only needed 55% for an A.

This is the kind of thing that is bandied about in the media on exam results days and it is really unfair to students especially with the new curriculum which is more rigorous. It is not really the students fault that the exams are set up like this.

I don’t think anyone has said the new GCSEs are way easier. Quite the contrary. Everyone thinks they are harder than the old GCSE.

daisy
There's literally people saying the exams have been watered down (probably with little or no experience of the specs)

People need to look back to the mid 80s when GCSE was brought in. For the first time most subjects had a coursework element, brought in for all sorts of reasons. Then a while later it was realised that coursework was often done with parental help and in some cases BY parents, so "controlled " coursework was brought in, which could be taken over and over again if the scores were not high enough.
Finally coursework was abandoned, it was realised that this element had dumbed down GCSE grades, skewed the results of the children from more affluent backgrounds and more rigour was needed.
So the pendulum swung back towards if not exactly back to old style O levels and CSEs.
Those who never did the old O levels think the new GCSEs are hard. They are hardER than old GCSEs but not that hard. They just rely on slightly different skills.
Kids are adaptable and accepting of their situation. For them it becomes normal.They don't know any different really except if others around them compare what they did or what their elder siblings did, none of which is helpful.
I taught old style O level/CSE before it was replaced as well as GCSE so I can state absolutely categorically that O level was much harder than new style GCSE. Kids may take fewer of the new ones but they will still do as well as they should, after all, it is the same for all of them. Try not to worry about it!

I was testing my son on all the DNA/Chromosome stuff they do in GCSE biology. So difficult - all I remember is drawing a carrot with a couple of labels back in the day!

(I did O' Levels. But I definitely think GCSE's are harder)

I'm surprised that everyone can remember so much about their o-level/GCSE syllabus. I couldn't actually tell you how dd's current GCSEs compare in difficulty to the exams that I did 30 years ago. Am I the only one who has forgotten most of it?!

DS1’s maths A-level had less content than I remember in mine.
Same for English Lit I think.
We weren’t expected to know about marking schemes etc though so it’s an extra level of analysis they have to apply on top.

I think it is harder now. Young people are under so much pressure.
I was a pupil in the early '70s. We had access to exam papers going back ten years from then and the earlier questions were so, so easy. As a teacher from 1992 to 2014, I noticed that Year 9 were doing work that used to be GCSE level. I can't imagine the trend has changed, as the education system seems to be designed mainly to punish both children and teachers. Oops. My bitterness showed.

I did OLevels and what is different for bright to average ability children is not the content but the pressure put on them.We weren't really aware of exams,we had yearly ones with the rest of the school but for your final exams you were in the hall or gym,and it was later in the year and usually really hot.
The whole of year 6 is spent(wasted) teaching to the sats.The whole of year 11 is the same pressured environment with extra revision classes(triple science as timetabling meant they had the same lesson time as the combined science),meetings to tell parents how to help their children revise,PSE lessons on how to relax and how important this year was etc.
And the paper are designed to stretch the bright so we have 3 grades designed for them.What about everyone else(the majority)how do these exams really cater for them.And why do our kids have to do 10 subjects?I had to do 10 but we took English Language and Geography at 15 so just studied 8 in our GCSE year.

It is certainly different to how it was when I was at school but I am not sure it is either easier or more difficult. Obviously in the sciences there is more content due to so much having been discovered or invented in recent years. When I was at University in the 80s we were learning about the synthesis of human insulin with awe as it was such new technology but I think my children covered that at GCSE or possibly sooner. But as the curriculum is broader I think some things are covered in less detail.
There seems to be less reliance on memorising things, which makes sense really as we all have facts at our fingertips now thanks to the internet. I am sure everyone from my era had teachers telling them that they won't have a calculator with them all the time for instance, but of course most of us do now.
I do think there is more emphasis on critical thinking now, which is really important given the vast amount of unfiltered information that our children have access to now. I think that learning to question the validity of sources of information is one of the most important things that yiung people need to do nowadays.
Overall, I am impressed by the quality of the education that my children have had so far. There is less rote learning and more thinking than in my day which can only be a good thing, and the breadth of topics they have covered from primary school onwards has been great. We do have very good schools locally though - I appreciate their experience may not be typical.
The only subjects I have been less impressed with are the languages my children have done. When my DD was doing GCSE German for instance I think I could still speak the language better than her and it was over 30 years since I did my O level. She got an A, but I bet she has forgotten it all by now and it is only a few years ago whereas I can still "get by" in French and German with relative ease.
I don't really agree with the EBacc as I think it limits choice and will be very damaging to the smaller subjects. My elder DS was one of only 11 to take Music GCSE out of a year group of over 150 and that was when the school was only "strongly encouraging" EBacc. From this year they are insisting upon it unless there exceptional circumstances. That leaves those choosing their options at our school this year with only one completely free choice of GCSE which I fear will very quickly lead to subjects like Music being dropped from the curriculum due to lack of numbers.