‘Gaming’ GCSE system ‘may affect Wales’ results
THERE could be a drop in this summer’s GCSE results in English, Maths and Welsh, it has been warned.
The drop is being blamed on schools entering pupils for exams a year early.
Data for GCSE English Language shows approximately 65% of all year 10 students in Wales will take the exam while in year 10.
Exam regulator Qualifications Wales said that as a result “we expect that this will mean that the overall results this summer will be lower than in previous years”.
Education secretary Kirsty Williams said she believed children were being entered for exams too early and not achieving their full potential.
“What I’m concerned about is that children who perhaps had the potential to get an A* and A or a B at the end of a two-year course end up having to settle for a C because they do it early and they’re not reentered.
“I want children to fulfil their potential in school. I want early entry to be only for the children who will benefit from it.
“When I see such large numbers as are being reported as being entered, that’s something I am concerned about.”
The Lib Dem AM asked if schools could be entering students early to improve their performance data.
“I am concerned that may be happening in some of our schools,” Ms Williams said.
“Some of our schools may be entering children because they want to give them a test.
“They want to show them that that’s what an exam looks like and give them that experience and those children will go on to sit the exam again.”
This year, for the first time, pupils have sat GCSE English and Welsh exams which are unique to Wales.
Ms Williams said the new qualifications were more rigorous and this could also account for the expected drop in results.
However, last October Qualifications Wales wrote to schools about the new qualifications and insisted: “There is a well-established approach to maintaining stability in outcomes when a new GCSE or an Alevel is introduced, known as ‘comparable outcomes’.
It said the aim was to ensure pupils taking new qualifications were “neither advantaged nor disadvantaged” compared to those who took the previous exam, and that the approach “works well in situations where one specification is replaced with another”.
In May, Welsh Government Director of Education Steve Davies told AMs some schools were “gaming” the exam system, that officials were “concerned” about the volume of early entry and the government wanted to take action this autumn.
Earlier in the month Ms Williams expressed concerns that the focus on raising GCSE attainment to C grade had led to “unintended consequences”, with some children put in for early entry to bank a lower qualification instead of potentially reaching higher.
In 2013, the then Education Minister Huw Lewis warned he would intervene to prevent schools “gaming the system” in the future if they did not stop voluntarily.