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UK shared exam system faces break up. Wales/NI students - how much do you know?

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Original post by paradoxicalme
Maybe the roof got blown off the shopping mall :wink:

IGCSEs are harder, I agree, but French GCSE I think is a minority for difficulty. I take English Lit, English Lang, Music, Latin, RS and Maths for GCSE (plus IGCSE French and Double Award Science) and I'd say out of my GCSE subjects, only Maths is 'easy.' Then again, you call Maths GCSE easy and you have a torrent of people saying how hard it is! It's all a matter of opinion. GCSEs on the whole I don't believe are too easy, and there are a lot of extension qualifications you can do - taking early ASes or doing the maths FSMQ, for instance.


Pretty much.

I seriously think there's a massive flaw in the idea of GCSEs as an egalitarian qualification which anybody can take. There's just such a huge variety in ability levels that I'm starting to think it's impossible to develop qualifications which effectively challenge all ability groups. At the top end, there'll always be people like you and me who barely drop a mark in the entire Maths GCSE and need to take more qualifications to challenge themselves; at the bottom, there'll always be people who can barely get an F grade in GCSE Maths. The old CSEs and O Levels were more realistic in that they were less generalised and more personalised to individual ability levels.
Original post by the1akshay
Pretty much.

I seriously think there's a massive flaw in the idea of GCSEs as an egalitarian qualification which anybody can take. There's just such a huge variety in ability levels that I'm starting to think it's impossible to develop qualifications which effectively challenge all ability groups. At the top end, there'll always be people like you and me who barely drop a mark in the entire Maths GCSE and need to take more qualifications to challenge themselves; at the bottom, there'll always be people who can barely get an F grade in GCSE Maths. The old CSEs and O Levels were more realistic in that they were less generalised and more personalised to individual ability levels.


I agree with you in that it's basically impossible to challenge all ability levels with one qualification. However, O Levels and CSEs pigeonholed people into 'crap' and 'not crap' at age 14. That's not right - especially since, at least in my mother's school, you either took all CSEs or all O Levels; so you could be a maths prodigy, but if you suck at other subjects they wouldn't let you take Maths O Level. Currently GCSEs are probably the best avenue we've got; what we really need are vocational qualifications that aren't looked down on like they are now. As in, like BTECs, but actually respected.
Original post by paradoxicalme
I agree with you in that it's basically impossible to challenge all ability levels with one qualification. However, O Levels and CSEs pigeonholed people into 'crap' and 'not crap' at age 14. That's not right - especially since, at least in my mother's school, you either took all CSEs or all O Levels; so you could be a maths prodigy, but if you suck at other subjects they wouldn't let you take Maths O Level. Currently GCSEs are probably the best avenue we've got; what we really need are vocational qualifications that aren't looked down on like they are now. As in, like BTECs, but actually respected.



That's true, but in your example, it's the school's fault not the fault of the O Level and the CSE. If somebody could take O Levels and CSEs interchangably, it'd be exactly the same as the situation right now with Higher and Foundation tiers. That's something I think politicians never realise.

Vocational qualifications will always be looked down on by really academic people. And since really academic people tend to be those in government or other high paying jobs, there's an institutional bias against vocational qualifications. But, unless you want relatively unacademic people in power, there's no solution.

I think the solution to the GCSE vs O Levels + CSE problem is to keep the GCSE and abolish the Foundation and Higher Tiers. Then, just make the exams longer to cover all of the content from both tiers. Expand the exam series' and make exams significantly longer. The only downside is, well, longer exams.
Original post by the1akshay
That's true, but in your example, it's the school's fault not the fault of the O Level and the CSE. If somebody could take O Levels and CSEs interchangably, it'd be exactly the same as the situation right now with Higher and Foundation tiers. That's something I think politicians never realise.

Vocational qualifications will always be looked down on by really academic people. And since really academic people tend to be those in government or other high paying jobs, there's an institutional bias against vocational qualifications. But, unless you want relatively unacademic people in power, there's no solution.

I think the solution to the GCSE vs O Levels + CSE problem is to keep the GCSE and abolish the Foundation and Higher Tiers. Then, just make the exams longer to cover all of the content from both tiers. Expand the exam series' and make exams significantly longer. The only downside is, well, longer exams.

This would only be good for the pupils that currently get A*-B/55-59%C grades. What would be covered and what would be added.

What dose everyone think?
Original post by the1akshay


I think the solution to the GCSE vs O Levels + CSE problem is to keep the GCSE and abolish the Foundation and Higher Tiers. Then, just make the exams longer to cover all of the content from both tiers. Expand the exam series' and make exams significantly longer. The only downside is, well, longer exams.


Unfortunately your solution doesn't work. The problem is that there are only a limited number of marks between nil and perfect. The wider the ability range examined the more spaced out those marks have to be and the coarser is the marking. Moreover, the wider the ability range examined, the more significant is the fluke. Silly mistakes on easy questions are as important as sophisticated answers to difficult questions at the top end and lucky answers to hard questions are as important as a solid understand of the basics at the bottom end.


The great beauty of the O level/CSE system was that whilst an O level pass was a grade A,B or C (by the end, there were earlier grading systems) and CSE Grade 1 was equivalent to an O level pass, it did sowithout saying what O level grade that would be.

In other words CSE examiners were spared having to set up their exams to do anything more than ensure at the top end, the examination could spot someone who would have achieved an O level pass. It did not have to distinguish between those who would barely scrape through and those who would have been on the way to a grade A.

There were more of the latter than one might think. One poster has mentioned those schools with hard streaming between O level and CSE. My school allowed (at parental expense) double entry. The CSE syllabus the school used for English was 100% coursework. If you collected up your marked O level essays and put them in a folder, you had a CSE coursework submission and subject to downward moderation of the school's marking, you knew that you had a CSE 1 in English before sitting the O level. I didn't do it but many did. Likewise, maths is maths and sitting both the CSE and O level exam gave two bites at the cherry.
(edited 10 years ago)

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