The Daily Telegraph

Getting top grade just as easy in Gove’s tougher GCSES

- By Camilla Turner education editor

THE number of pupils getting the highest GCSE grades will be the same as previous years, the Education Secretary has said, despite the introducti­on of tougher exams.

Damian Hinds moved to reassure parents that even if children found the new exams particular­ly difficult, they will not be “disadvanta­ged” for being the guinea pigs of the new system.

Around 590,000 pupils will travel to school today to pick up their GCSE results. They are the first year group to take the new GCSES in a range of subjects created by Michael Gove, the former education secretary, as part an attempt to inject rigour into the qualificat­ions and bring the UK in line with top performing countries in the Far East. Many courses have had coursework elements reduced or removed in favour of exams, and the curriculum has been beefed up to include a broader range of topics.

But grading will be especially lenient to compensate for the fact that exams are harder. The exams watchdog is likely to lower grade boundaries to ensure that roughly the same proportion of students get top grades as in previous years.

Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Mr Hinds says that despite the changes, “this year’s results will be fair to the young people who worked hard for their exams”. He writes: “To make sure that pupils who take the new GCSES are not at a disadvanta­ge when compared to those who went before, the independen­t qualificat­ions regulator Ofqual uses a statistica­l method called ‘comparable outcomes’.

“This ensures that broadly the same proportion of pupils will pass, and reach the equivalent of an A grade as in previous years, assuming the ability profile of the pupils is the same.”

The same “comparable outcomes” system is in place for A-levels, and last week it emerged that students can get almost half of the questions wrong and still get an A. Just 55 per cent was enough to achieve an A grade in the new OCR advanced biology A-level, while 59 per cent secured an A in

biology. Earlier this week, it emerged that pupils who failed the new tougher science GCSE exam have been handed a free pass by the watchdog after it moved the boundaries.

Ofqual took the highly unusual step of intervenin­g to save science students from failure, following warning from exam boards that a number of students would be given a U, standing for “unclassifi­ed”.

Experts have warned that artificial­ly lowering the pass marks to ensure consistenc­y between different cohorts creates an illusion that students are doing better than they actually are.

Lord Baker, who introduced GCSES when he served as education secretary under Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties, has said that lowering grade boundaries is a “fudge”.

“It is extraordin­ary, really – you bring in new standards and then they are so hard you have to water them down,” he said. “If you are going to toughen up the exams and then change the boundaries why are you toughening up the exams? That is a fudge.”

Mr Hinds said that the reforms came about after “years of employers saying that the old GCSES didn’t provide young people with the skills they needed”.

The reformed GCSES are now on a par with “the best education systems in the world”, he said.

Mr Hinds explained that the new grading system, where 9 to 1 replaces A* to G, will act as a “clear signpost for employers, universiti­es and colleges whether someone has taken one of the new, more rigorous GCSES”.

Sally Collier, the head of Ofqual, said: “Many years in the making, these new GCSES are more challengin­g and will better prepare students for further study or employment.

“Students picking up their results today can be confident they have achieved the grades their performanc­e deserves.”

 ??  ?? ‘Hello, is that the GCSE exam board? I’m willing to pay you £130,000 hush money ...’
‘Hello, is that the GCSE exam board? I’m willing to pay you £130,000 hush money ...’

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