GCSE grade inflation leads to bad choices at A-level

Lenient marking over past two years may make students overestimate their abilities, experts say

PUPILS awarded inflated GCSE grades are in danger of selecting A-level subjects that are too hard for them, schools have been told.

Teenagers may have received a false sense of their abilities in the past two years, when marking was more lenient and based on teacher assessments.

GCSE grade inflation reached an alltime high in 2021, with 30.2 per cent, of students awarded grade 7 and above – equivalent to A or A*. It represented a significant rise from the 21.9 per cent of students awarded top grades in 2019.

The number of students getting a clean sweep of the top GCSE mark was four times higher than pre-pandemic.

But this year’s GCSE cohort, which is the first to sit formal exams in three years, faces disappointment on Thursday’s results day, because exam boards trying to tackle grade inflation have been told to set grade boundaries below last year’s. However, marking will still be more generous than it was in 2019.

Barnaby Lenon, former head of Harrow and chairman of the Independent Schools Council, said: “It is important to see inflation come down because inflated grades give a false impression of a pupil’s knowledge and understanding. This can lead them to take courses for which they are inadequately equipped. An example would be maths A-level which all teachers know is pretty inaccessible to pupils who cannot achieve a very good grade at GCSE under normal conditions.”

Defending the decision to tighten grade boundaries, a Whitehall source said: “Teachers have told us they have had pupils doing subjects at A-level that

‘Teachers have told us they have had pupils doing subjects at A-level they shouldn’t really be studying’

they shouldn’t really be studying. We need grades to be a fair reflection of abilities.”

The largest grade inflation during the pandemic was in economics, performing arts and engineering, with the proportion of students obtaining a grade 7 or higher jumping by 20 per cent between 2019 and 2021.

Maths and science results saw the least inflation, with the proportion of top grades increasing by just five percentage points over the same period.

Pupils studying the classics, such as Latin or Ancient Greek, were the most likely to achieve the top grades overall, with over three-quarters doing so.

Lord Lucas, editor of The Good Schools Guide, said: “Pupils got the grades that were always expected to be sufficient to study a subject at A-level. I suspect pupils had the expectation they could take a subject and schools were reluctant to disappoint them.”

He said he expected schools to take a cautious approach to assessing whether pupils should study a subject at A-level this year, when exam marking has still been more lenient than in pre-pandemic years. Pupils were also given advanced sight of topics for certain subjects, while some exams had less content or fewer topics.

Lord Lucas said: “Now that we know how much inflation there is in the system, I don’t suppose the kids who get inflated GCSE results this year will be urged to take on an A-level which they’re not up to. I think schools will be careful about it.”

Dr Jo Saxton, chief regulator at Ofqual, the exam watchdog said: “The class of 2022 can be so proud of what they have achieved.”