Do you like the GCSE system?

[YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer]

As someone who lives in America, I have no experience with GCSE (or A Levels either). Every year on results day I read the posts and it makes me think about whether I would like this system or not. So do I have it right that the result of a test determines your whole grade and ability to move on for A levels? What if a child has a bad or off day? If they had been producing great work all school year but then something just goes wrong on test day, or maybe they are not good at test taking, is any of that taken into consideration? Here my kids do have final exams for each class they take, but that is just a portion of their final grade. All the work they do during the school year is part of the grade too. So if a child has a bad day and doesnt do great on their final exam, it is still possible for them to pass the class. (for anyone who knows the American system I am only talking about regular classes where I am, AP "advanced placement" classes could be different but I dont have personal experience with that). I'm certainly NOT saying our system is better I'm just curious to hear if parents (and kids) like your system. And honestly just to add, I like how after GCSE they get to focus on only 3 or 4 subjects, so I am not saying "our way is the best way" but I do think about my kids. One would have had no problem with GCSEs but my other two sons were not great "test takers" and it would have been a big struggle for them to have a test on one day determine what happens next.

I actually loved maths research projects too, which were not part of my GCSE but something that my teacher made us do in the mid 90s. But it was before the internet! Doing it now would be totally different and I am not convinced it would be fair.

@Pythag but if it's done in the classroom under the watchful eye of the teacher it would be fine surely?

I think exams are the least prone to cheating hence the current focus on them. Unfortunately coursework and controlled assessments were often 'supported' more than they should have been and also more time spent on them than should have been. This is rubbish as coursework is more reflective of real life learning!!

I liked as we did them, I don't like the way the previous government set them up though and I hope the current government will change it, though sadly I don't think it'll happen before our son takes his (who will find them extra challenging).

Right now the set up is how a bunch of private-school educated, wealthy men think all education ought to be done, with an emphasis on exams and doing things like memorising lots of classic literature.

And there are just too many papers and too many mock exams, it's totally relentless. There's really no need for up to three papers per subject when kids have 9+ subjects to cover.

Advantages of multiple papers:

• a bad day has less effect
• if someone is ill, they can be given a grade off the papers they did sit (in 2022 they took care to separate the papers by at least 10 days, so covid was unlikely to mean missing both)
• the papers aren't too long and exhausting
• it's easier to fit in the extra time for those who need it, without them missing the school bus home after an afternoon exam
• for subjects (not maths) where the content on each paper is different, there's less to remember at once.

Other countries do manage to include more coursework, apparently without the problems there are here with schools giving too much help. I can only assume that the problem here is that so much pressure is put on schools (and passed on to teachers) to achieve results. Other countries perhaps have better ways of measuring school/teacher performance.

When I did English GCSE in the early 90s, we had no exams at all and submitted a portfolio of chosen coursework done over the two years. Even for A level, we could take annotated texts into the exam.

Now, it seems to be solely about memorising quotes and has made my own children absolutely despise the subject!

Is that really what we want?

@lanthanum it just seems so much - 27 or so different exam papers. It's really too much.
GCSEs make me sad. They really do.
🙁

Hate the exam based system and absolutely think A levels should be binned. I went to school in the US and while it certainly has issues it is much better. Wider choices keeping options open, future does not come down to five hours x 3 for exams. Plus applying with predicted grades? Awful awful awful.
There's not much need for GCSEs really. Surely a few termly exams and course grades should be sufficient to steer the kids to subject to take at A level, or why not just continue a broader curriculum to 18 so kids don't have to decide at 15 whether they are going for one field and exclude other avenues.

I think you’re right. I have friends who teach in Spain and all have told me that there is absolutely no pressure put on teachers- how the kids perform is seen as their responsibility and that’s all there is to it.

I'm a first year undergraduate. We get to do most exams at home, 24 hour open book. The cheating is immense. From ai, to paid services, to third year friends, to daddy and Mammy, or even daddy's employees being paid to do the students work.

I took GCSES when they were more heavily coursework based . My Nan helped me. For maths, my brother did my math coursework (10% of the grade- the pool table if any one else remembers this)

Coursework is open to cheating. My personal cheating in the 90s proves that. And cheating is far far more advanced now, as my current experience proves.

Therefore whilst exam culture is awful, and stressful, it's a learned skill. It's hard. But it mimics equality and fairness as best it can. And better than any alternative that I have seen. All forms favour the rich. Social mobility is almost impossible. But I have many friends in America- and the same problems are evident. No social mobility, and even more than here, the unfair advantage of the rich bearing unfair outcomes in education is clear.

I mean there is some exaggeration there. This year the bulk of GCSE exams (excluding MFL spoken exams and things like art which were earlier) were spread over six weeks, not three. And not that many subjects have three papers actually - excluding NEAs, Eng lit, Eng lang, history, all the sciences, business, economics, CS, PE have two; music, drama, art, DT have one written exam.

I wanted to add that the variation in grade boundaries is not normally that great; last year and the year before they were more lenient (for want of a better word) to take account of the Covid issue, to some extent.

Coursework done "under the watchful eye of the teacher" is exactly the issue. Pressure on teachers to get the best possible results inevitably leads to, well, cheating for want of a better word. Sorry but it's true.

Agree with others, multiple papers for exams (the ones I note have one exam paper also have an NEA element) helps those who are ill or have a bad day. That's why the exams are more staggered than they were across the weeks as well.

It's not ideal but I agree with a PP, as a classroom teacher I preferred the all-exam GCSE by a long way.

@clary apologies - I was genuine in thinking it was 3 weeks - with a 4th week as the "back up". I'm not sure where I got that idea from though 🙂.
The number of papers taken was based on what my various young relatives have told me - but they did do their exams 6 or 7 years ago now.
It still seems so much when you include mocks. It seriously just seems like it's exam after exam. Going over the same thing and the techniques. I remember every time I saw my niece when she was doing her GCSEs she always said she had "revision" to do - every school holiday, every weekend - always revising. I asked her once when she actually learned something new as she appeared to be going over the same things - over and over.
It's all just so dull.

No
Too high stakes. Too much content. Too much pressure. Too many exams and too many young people fail to achieve even the basic levels in maths and English every year. A third of students in fact. Every year!
After 12 years of schooling, a third of them ‘fail’. They have a name ‘The Forgotten Third’.

After DH & I going through the English system and now having 3 kids going through the American one: Not really. Exams aren't always the best way of assessing knowledge. I understand the issues with coursework, but you are limiting your understanding of achievement with an exam only system.

The problem with slimming down or restructuring GCSEs is that you would really need to restructure post-16 education as well, because as the system is designed, 16 is a huge break point and many subjects are dropped. If I were to redesign the system I would vastly simplify exams at 16 and widen the curriculum post-16. It would free up time to actually learn if students weren't spending so much time preparing and revising for the exams. The Guardian also had a piece on how A-Level choices have narrowed in the past few years.

Exams measure your ability to pass exams, and the system labels young people whose learning style isn't suited to exams as a failure.

We then make them feel even worse by making them endlessly resit English and Maths so they can continue to fail and be given the message that they are 'stupid'.

Yes, literacy and numeracy are important, but there are other ways to assess.

It’s worked for my children as they’ve all been very academic and all have got amazing grades, my youngest yesterday got all top grades and it was a massive relief as she put in so much work. But overall no I don’t think it’s a great system. My DD has had poor health since year 8, and it’s been incredibly tough, one exam I didn’t think she was going to make it as she nearly passed out 2hrs beforehand, how she managed to get a 9 in that I do not know. So her poor health could have meant she didn’t get the grades she deserved. During covid teachers did the grading but that’s open to so much abuse so not ideal and we all know coursework is open to abuse too. So I don’t see any better system, and in all honesty I don’t think the U.K. will get rid of public exams. It’s a good barometer that it’s not just your teacher over marking and you’ve been assessed fairly against your peers. Any other system is not fair due to abuse but appreciate GCSE’s aren’t fair either to those who are very bright but struggle with exams. I’m glad I’m done with GCSE’s now and onwards for A levels now.

I suspect exams are the 'least bad' method currently available within the Englush system, rather than a good one.

My DD has various SEN, and one of her problems has been stamina. She just can't keep going through 1hr45mins plus of an exam, let alone do another one the next day, and the next etc.

Coursework was very open to abuse.

On TV American school all look very similar, I gave always wondered how grades are standardised before you get to SATs at 16 or 18.

I would like to keep the range of subjects but not insist on public exams for so many.

This. Intelligence is different to intelligence + good at passing exams.

Our eldest has great comprehension but dyslexia and a memory like a sieve for quotes and dates, which still seem such a favourite.

I don't know what the solution is as yes coursework is open to abuse but something more neuro-friendly that doesn't habitually fail so many kids would be nice.

And maybe also a culture that values BTecs and alternative vocational qualifications as equals not 'oh well if you're crap there's always practical stuff', like it's a poor second best.

DD did incredibly well yesterday so yes, on paper the system suits her. The reality is, however, that she is spent most of this year bored. They started revision classes in January and took a full set of mocks (23 exams in her case) at the end of Feb. After that it was back to revision classes until the exams. So this year she hasn't learnt anything new and has sat 46 exams. I'm not sure what the solution is but the number of exans seems excessive.

It makes sense to have separate papers in some subjects - e.g. languages usually have reading/writing, speaking, and listening. And I agree a single exam doesn't help if someone has a bad day.

When GCSEs were introduced (I was I the first year, 1988,) part of the aim was to make them fairer by including coursework - it recognised that not everyone is well-suited to exams and a one-off performance.

Part of the issue is that GCSEs are very important to league tables etc. Every school can tell you its percentage of students achieving at least 5 GCSEs at grade 7 or above. But that completely overlooks the schools where getting someone from a 3 to a 5 is a far greater achievement than a very capable student getting straight 9s.

Also, we narrow the curriculum too soon. I resented being allowed to take only 3 subjects at A-level - I was an all-rounder. I wasn't really ready to give up maths and sciences. Specialisation does help some people who have clear preferences, but there are millions of 16yos who don't really know what they want to do yet. There is the option of doing the Bac, but that's not available at all schools. Perhaps that's not an issue in cities, but in places with large rural catchment areas and a reliance on school buses, you don't have those choices. And I can understand why Sunak wanted everyone to do dome sort of maths up to 18, but constant GCSE resits isn't the answer.

When I went into 6th form, we had a lot of people staying on for a year (when they could have left at 16,) doing things like extra numeracy and literacy. At the other end of the scale, they were supporting those of us who were Oxbridge candidates. I fear those less able students would not get the same options now. Although most people will now have to stay in school until 18 rather than 16, the focus is now very much on what counts towards league tables, which will work fine for those who are academically able, (I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets some enjoyment from the challenge of having to answer a question within a certain time,) but people aren't all the same and some would do better with other options. Options which mostly don't really exist.

But I don't really know enough of other countries' education systems to compare and contrast.

My oldest has just done really well in them but they had to push themselves so hard with the sheer volume of work

DS (13) has ADHD and honestly I'm thinking in terms of what subjects does he 'sacrifice' focus on so he can manage decent maths and English Language because there is no way he will be able to put the work and focus in for all 9 subjects.

I agree with all this.

Ridiculous pressure.

Also they are not fit for purpose any more. When they came in children could leave education at 16 so this was their main shot at qualifications. Now they have to stay in education until 18 anyway and get further qualifications so this is a lot of work for something that is superceded and made almost valueless within two years. I don’t know anyone who lists their GCSE grades on a CV these days, yet they’re really pressured for top grades.

Maths and English are vital so I agree these need focus. The other subjects don’t need that level of examination at that point and should be internal testing via the school to determine their skill level for moving on to A level which can be done via both exam and practical work over two years.

@Needmorelego I completely agree. I was the first year of GCSE's many years ago. A large part of them was course work but that seems to have vanished. So unfair on the ones who are not great at exams. Hate them.