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.

Yes hence school ‘making them anxious’

I think that COVID is a bit of an excuse at this point. It hasn’t affected any of the current cohort’s actual GCSE course. Of course it affected KS3 and learning habits but there has been plenty of time to catch up.

Also, for those saying GCSEs are boring or irrelevant, what would you prefer them to study? Ultimately what they are meant to be learning is the ability to analyse and write in an educated way based on the analysis (or problem solve in Maths and the Sciences). As for the factual learning, that is being continually updated by the boards to keep relevance, although much doesn’t change. Pupils still need to learn about Shakespeare, WW2, how physical feature form in Geography and the heliocentric nature of the solar system.

There is an argument that, now education is compulsory to 18, we could scrap public exams at 16, but for those going into apprenticeships, their CV would look pretty bare if they ever chose to change careers.

@Newbutoldfather school isn't compulsory until 18.

@Needmorelego ,

If you read my post, it said education, not school. And it is.

I agree.

I feel like a lot of myths are currently brewing on here - that school didn’t used to be dull, it was far more relaxed, that everyone sat on front-facing desks so they didn’t really need to interact with others and anybody different was ‘locked away in institutions’. I saw one poster here say in the 1980s ‘most children left school at 14’.

Perhaps the latter 2 were true in the 1960s, but I (30s) and my peers ranging in age from 25-55 all remember school as being dull, with strict teachers, uniform inspections, bullying and sitting on tables in groups. As for the institutions I’m pretty sure there were virtually none from 1995 onwards.

Kids now do seem to be more troubled and mentally ill than in previous years but to be honest I don’t think it’s Covid, or schools. I think screens play a HUGE role and they’ve messed with young people’s brains, essentially moulding the reward system so they’re unable to cope with anything boring or that requires focus for long periods of time. And as PP said when they’re not able to go on screens in class they feel ‘anxious’ and only ‘feel safe at home’ (where they can retreat onto screens). I also think permissive parenting has a part to play - kids are encouraged to dwell on their feelings and are protected from learning virtually any life lessons themselves.

It’s all a mess but I feel blaming schools is easier for most as it means shafting the onus for change onto somebody else.

@Newbutoldfather ok....."education" isn't compulsory until 18 either.

One certain thing is tinkering with school hplidays will not help.
And reducing summer holidays might encourage more 'term time' holidays.
Could pupils be able to apply directly for group online maths and eng tutoring.

Missing equivalent of whole school year it would be surprising if it didnt impact

@Newbutoldfather perfectly legal to be working full time after Year 11 while doing "training" (which pretty much everyone starting at a new job would be doing - you can't do a job if you aren't trained how to do a job).

I've had a flick through the study and while it makes the case that kids for the next few years will have suffered learning loss, they absolutely do not make the case that this will translate to poorer GCSE grades.

Children who miss a lot of school perform worse at GCSE, yes. But if the whole cohort misses a lot of school, and performs worse at GCSE, the key question is 'will that mean that fewer of them pass?'.

And the answer to that is 'it depends on whether the government says they do or not'.

Grade boundaries are set by something called comparable outcomes - in order to avoid grade inflation it was decided that the proportion of kids getting a grade 4+ each year would stay roughly the same. Grade boundaries are set to achieve this.

There is a slight allowance for the ability of a cohort - if a cohort is brighter than previous years, then adjustments can be made so that more of them pass, or the other way around. Previously the ability of the cohort was decided by looking at KS2 SATs results. More recently this has been assessed by something called National Reference Tests which are sat each year by a random sample of Y11s. It's the same test each year so allows for cohort comparison.

Last year it was decided that the grade distribution would return to 2019 levels - so the same proportion of kids should e.g. get a grade 4+ in maths as did in 2019. The national reference tests showed that last year's Y11 were actually worse at maths than previous cohorts. Really there should have been an adjustment to account for this so that fewer of them passed, but it was decided that there wouldn't be.

So basically, 'worst GCSE results for decades' will be a government decision and I doubt they'll go for it.

Not surprised given that many children had almost six months without being in the classroom at all in 2020.

I agree with the person who said there are too many exams taken, certainly for GCSE.

Agree. Kids are spoon fed everything with the goal of passing a test

This. Shakespeare is boring if you're not really into literature. So are the ten or so poems they have to learn off by heart. There are so many great books and plays out there to engage kids, but no, let's stick to the same dull curriculum from the last 20 years. Then there's history. The Second World War and the nazis is actually interesting, and part of our own history. The American civil war isn't. My dd is finding both that and British medicine very dull indeed. It's hard when out of the 7 or 8 subjects you have to study for GCSE, there's only actually one or two you've specifically chosen yourself.

All of this. I left school in 1990. A lot of my final grades were comprised of coursework done over several months rather than cramming for a 90 minute exam. I also got to choose more subjects than my kids, they only got to choose two, the rest are compulsory. My dd will sit 24 exams. I sat nowhere near that many.

@Comedycook makes a good point.

DD (Y11) only did 1 practical food tech before she had to make her gcse choices. She had had a few weeks of music in Y7, but not allowed to touch any instruments after that (covid infection).

Both of these are subjects she enjoys immensely at home and as extra curricular, but she didn't feel as though she had enough knowledge on the course work to commit to doing them for gcse.

I'm confident she would have excelled.

Instead she chose subjects that were more insular and lone-working based, because of her lack in confidence and poor social skills.

I'm still certain she will achieve well.

But it's wrong to suggest her education wasn't disrupted in a big way and that it hasn't had a lasting affect.

i think each cohort will be affected slightly differently. This year 11 must have missed a lot of year 7/8 in those formative and foundation years. There is probably something quite important about building relationships early on and having security re social interactions to then facilitate the academic learning.

At the younger end, I’ve read that current year 3s may never catch-up socially from missing nursery and reception. Anecdotally it’s the most challenging year in our primary.

Well there’s a broad brush bullshit statement if ever I saw one.

DS is Y11 and they've got the worst of all worlds IMO

Everything for them is 'normal' no GCSE 'assistance' like the last 2 years but yet they missed at least a year realistically of secondary school

I cannot fault school they are throwing everything at this cohort and DS is working fucking hard.

But I feel their grades will be lower and it's not their fault.

That’s not “quite” correct. Most of the assistance has gone but they’ll still get science formula sheets and won’t need to learn them.

I think this is the last year for that.

They are still going to be disadvantaged though

The thing is, we have no idea when the grade boundaries this year are going to be what they were in 2019. If they are, it's completely wrong. It needs to be at another 2 years before kids have had normal schooling

You could do a lot of things that would lead to better outcomes and be more suitable for many children. For apprenticeships, you only need maths and English at grade 4. Children could do 4 or 5 GCSES and spend the rest of the time just learning things., like arts, sport, a bit of vocational learning etc. . Getting rid of BTECs at L2 ( and 3) is a mistake imo, and doesnt help children who are not academic. You don't need to be doing 8/9 GCSE's, or the sheer volume of papers they need to do. The curriculum could be far more flexible and inventive than rote learning tons of facts on things they will never use again. The L3 qualifications get fiddled with all the time but the GCSE is just depressing and uninspiring and gets ignored or made worse.

The distribution of grades is going back to pre covid levels. That doesn't mean grade boundaries are.

I'm a teacher and we've been doing a lot of work around this subject.

There seems to be a huge disengagement from kids and parents. Everything is too hard or stressful a d parents will support that. We are trying to encourage students to ‘buy in’ to the idea of school and learn ing and making it explicit that even if it's challenging/boring it will improve their life opportunities.

This is working for some, mainly high achievers or with positive and supportive parents. For low ability students only able to achieve 2’s and 3’s, for students with an idea of how they'll earn money after, and for a few others they do not care. It's very sad to see, I blame the narrow curriculum, stressed staff/lack of staff, reduction of ‘fun stuff’, screen and vaping addiction and the lock downs.

God that history GCSE is so boring! DS chose history, but who cares about the endless broken treaties from the American West? (Apart from Americans, who should be taught it!) Just going through the revision flashcards with him is tedious enough, and both me and him love history! Agree about medicine too.

Mermaideyes exactly this. My daughter just totally disengaged as she was so unbelievably bored.
She didn't do well tbh but has thrived at Btecs and will go off to uni in September all being well. Certain subjects I totally agree with but some of the stuff learnt in them isn't fitting in today's world. She'll never read Shakespeare again and has no interest in the American civil war.
The whole thing needs an overhaul but how they start or implement that I don't know!

This doesn’t surprise me. Isn’t this the first year the boundaries are going back to pre covid? So the exams are harder than they have been in years. And these kids missed and had massive disruptions in most of Y7 and Y8. They never got that secondary school grounding of all the basics.