GCSE results 'worst results in decades '

[Tel12]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/24/pupils-in-england-facing-worst-exam-results-in-decades-after-covid-closures-says-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
This article highlights the predictions of declining grades in GCSEs this year and for years following, impacting on lifelong prospects. I'm not surprised by the results, just reflects on my own experience. It's really concerning.

Sounds highly unlikely to me!

No reason for this year’s results to be worse than last years, unless they move grade boundaries up. I think missing school closer to GCSEs is more costly than age 5, as the study seems to claim.

There are just so many factors, though, including grade boundaries and how hard they make the papers.

I think that one of the factors is that children have ave become disengaged. Anecdotally I have heard of younger children starting school behind the usual developmental markers. We will see.

It doesn’t really work this way. First, where are they getting these apparent predictions from? Second, grade boundaries and proportions change - they’re not fixed and so if a cohort slightly underperforms the one before them the boundaries shift so the proportion is similar.

I think that’s actually one of the issues.Unis find it hard to work out who is the best and most likely to succeed. Ditto employers. So if we keep saying every cohort is just as good as previous cohorts, which cannot always be true, we devalue exam results and no one believes what they see. Employers own tests often confirm this.

This doesn’t surprise me. The year 11s this academic year, had only been in high school for a term and a half before the pandemic and the first lockdown hit.
They have been playing catch up since and there have been no allowances made for this at all.
Add the impact of disengagement and mental health challenges that many in this cohort struggle with and it’s a perfect storm of unmet need and expectations.

I think the sats last year were adjusted a bit on the scaled scores but not hugely maybe 2 points. Those kids are current y7.
I think my dc has mostly caught back up in say reading and maths, perhaps not writing. But did miss a lot of geography and history and thats affected her interest in those.

There will be a drop on results as wales i think are only going back to pre covid scales this year. So its going to seem like a drop from the highs of 2020 but its partly because thats inflated.

Results for years who didnt do sats so 2020/21 (2022 werent reported) maybe down as the school presumably set the targets rsther than impacting progress 8.

I think dc secondary seems to be reducing homework as some core subjects including science and english are only 2 weekly if that. And almost all subjects are constant revision so never enhancing learning.
(And havent had one piece of homework marked and returned..!)

If learning is getting easier due to better technology and availability of content, then why is there more concern about lower performance?

I think that one of the factors is that children have ave become disengaged.

Just like adults at my work, in the shops serving etc. I wonder what studies will be done to look at the impact of the pandemic on general engagement level - that would be fascinating!

My DD's Head Teacher has said that this year's GCSEs are predicted to be the lowest ever for the school and yet this cohort had above average test scores when they joined the school in Y7 ( DD didn't join the school until Y9)

I feel so sad for my DD. She was always going to struggle to get good grades but I think without Covid she could have banked on at least some level 4s. Home school was a nightmare for her. She just couldn't keep up with the video lessons.

My son is year 11 and his form tutor a couple of years ago said she felt that his cohort were the worst affected by covid.

Same here with this year's year 11 v low achieving/underperforming/however you want to term it

The difference is quite stark compared to the children who did their exams last year.

My daughter sat GCSE's two years and honestly I think half the disengagement is that the subject matter taught is so boring for young people in a modern world.
They had a year of not learning about American civil war, or Shakespeare plays. By the time she went back she didn't want to go back to learning it, it's boring.
Got to sixth form and the subjects she chose are interesting, current and engaging .
It's not just Covid years I think the whole thing needs an overhaul and I'm so glad we are nearly done for both my children!

Couldn’t agree more! GCSEs are dire - they’ve barely changed since I sat them in the 80s 😬. Utterly irrelevant to the kids of 2024 sadly. Can’t wait for mine to be off to college 😊

I think certainly an overhaul of compulsory subjects
So i would stop eng lit

So just lang
Maths
2-3 sci

Then free rein.
However doing IT i would have as a suggested.

Dc school seem to cover the same science topics on y7+ as to gcse so surely missing loads of topics.
I would remove dc school having to do either geo or history.

They have only about 2 free choices

DS in year 11 and his latest predicted grades are the worst they have been since he started secondary school. It’s so disheartening.

He has excellent attendance. He goes to school interventions and tutoring. He does find it difficult to concentrate and lacks motivation to revise, so there’s a lot of nagging (but I assume this is typical for a lot of teens?) however he’s been revising every day. It doesn’t seem to help. I have tried everything, and I am completely at a loss how to help him any more. I was not involved nearly this much in DDs GCSEs and she got good grades.
Yet DD and DS got exactly the same SATS grades in Y6….

Friends are saying the same thing, their Y11 DCs predicted grades are awful.

I am wondering if it’s a knock- on effect of lockdowns.

The results are curved and are going back to 2019 levels. They went back nearly to that level last year. So they won't be the worst results for decades as the curves are set once the results are in.

The level of learning may be lower because of covid gaps in knowledge. And there will be differences depending on how well schools supported their pupils.

DD is year 11. Covid meant they missed almost all of year 7 and a lot of year 8. That’s a huge chunk of foundation learning as well as the missed social skill development. I don’t see how their GCSE grades can be compared to pre-covid. DD1 is about to take her A-Levels having repeated yr12. She’s also had a huge impact on her education due to Covid, especially in terms of exam preparation and experience of how to sit exams as she missed yr10/11.

Distracted by screens IMO

Agree, my ds is in year 11 currently. COVID had such a huge impact on his education. Really ruined year 7 for him. He was so excited to start secondary school and enthusiastic. He actually ended up really hating school. So sad.

One huge issue to remember is that actually choosing their GCSEs was so difficult. They didn't really get the time and opportunity to experience a lot of new subjects such as drama, engineering, IT, food tech etc and it was really hard to make a fully informed choice. My ds regrets some of his GCSEs choices.

Getting rid of coursework/module tests also has probably made a difference.
Too many compulsory subjects that the students aren't interested in.
Having to sit 27 exam papers in a space of a weeks - most of Year 11 seems to about revision and exam techniques rather than actually learning something.
It's all just so depressing.

True...and being stuck at home for months on end really worsened this. My ds was sent home from school to quarantine for two weeks and told by the teachers that if they saw him out they'd call the police. I told him I'd drive him to a quiet area to walk outside but he was too terrified.

I think the screens pervade learning in a few ways. Firstly the physical distraction (phones in school, phones distracting from revision) but also because they massively lower kids attention spans. They’re now so used to short dopamine hits it’s hard for them to concentrate and absorb larger quantities of ‘dull’ information. I’m convinced half the kids with ‘anxiety’ have screen withdrawal symptoms.

Maybe part of the problem is that GCSEs have become so stylised - aggressively teaching to the tests, memorising of mark schemes, kids being forcefed sample answers and discouraged from using critical thinking, look-cover-write-check homework etc...that brighter kids are being turned off and not achieving their potential? Just a thought.

Absolutely agree.

And when they're in school and sitting in lessons without them, they are probably actually in withdrawal.