Wales GCSE passes drop again
WALES’ overall GCSE pass rate has dropped again in 2018.
It is the first year that nearly all exams – a total of 15 reformed GCSEs – were examined for the first time.
Figures published by the WJEC show 61.6% of students achieved grades A*-C across all subjects, compared to 62.8% in 2017.
In contrast, across England, Wales and Northern Ireland the overall pass rate rose by 0.5% to 66.9%.
Despite the dip the proportion of students getting top grades A*-A has
increased; from 17.9% to 18.5% this year.
Overall though, Wales has recorded its lowest GCSE pass rate for more than a decade after it remained around 66% for a number of years.
Independent exam regulator Qualifications Wales and the WJEC said changes to GCSEs and in entry patterns mean it is hard to make comparisons year on year or with results across the border.
Last year’s decline in the overall pass rate was blamed partly on early entries, but those have fallen dramatically this year after the Welsh Government announced that from 2019 only a pupil’s first result would go towards school performance indicators.
Wales’ two reformed maths exams saw mixed results.
Students in Wales can now to take either GCSE mathematics or GCSE Mathematics numeracy or both.
This summer the majority took both with a 0.3% point increase in the proportion of students achieving grade A*-C in GCSE mathematics numeracy, but there has been a slight fall, of two percentage points, in the number of students awarded grades A*-C for GCSE mathematics.
The WJEC said looking at pass rates for 16-year-olds only the results for English language and both maths exams are stable.
This year is the second year of reform for English language, English literature, mathematics, mathematics numeracy, Welsh first language and Welsh literature.
Another 15 reformed subjects (taking total to 21) have their results this year, including a new double award in science.
For GCSE biology, chemistry and physics entries rose from 400 to 600 candidates.
A*-C outcomes for GCSE biology and physics have fallen slightly this year to 88% and 89.4% while A*-C outcomes for GCSE chemistry have remained relatively stable at 89.5%.
The WJEC said: “This change in outcomes can be attributed to the change in entry patterns.
“The proportion of students achieving A* grades for each of the separate science subjects has increased, with GCSE biology increasing 1.6 percentage points to 17.4%, GCSE chemistry increasing 0.9 percentage points to 18.2%, and GCSE physics increasing 1.5 percentage points to 18.4%.”
The new GCSE science double award, examined for the first time this summer, saw 50.9% students get grades A*-C.
The new double award qualification and the separate science qualifications are of the same academic standard, said the WJEC but, the separate science subjects continue to attract the highest proportion of the most able students.
Entry patterns also affected English results, the exam board said.
For English Literature results dropped slightly to 77.3% of students achieving grades A*-C – compared to around 80.4% last year. The WJEC said this was explained by the increase in entries by 15 year old students.
“As widely expected, school entry patterns, where schools in Wales enter the most able students for GCSE English language examinations early, has had a knock-on effect on overall performance in outcomes this summer, with 40.7% of students achieving grades A*-C.
“For GCSE English language, the A*-G outcomes are most appropriately reflected by looking at 16-yearolds across the November and summer series which shows relative stability in both entries and outcomes when considered across the full academic year.”
For Welsh Language the examiner said withdrawal of the short course GCSE had impacts on second language results but results for GCSE Welsh first language remain broadly similar to last year, with 71.2% achieving grade A*-C; compared to 72% in 2017.
There has also been a rise in students achieving A* – in Welsh first language with 4.1% achieving the top grade, an increase of 0.4 percentage points on last year.
This year summer saw a 2,500
increase in entries for GCSE Welsh second language full course, and a decrease for GCSE Welsh second language short course, which the exam board said had affected outcomes.
Overall 74.8% of students achieved grades A*-C in 2018, compared to 79.8% in 2017.
Welsh Literature entries and outcomes were broadly similar to last year and there was a slight rise in the proportion of students being awarded grades A*-C. This year, 76% of students achieved A*-C in Welsh literature , compared to 75.1% in 2017.
Slightly more students also took the subject at 3,304 compared to 3,320 in 2017.
Modern Foreign Languages entries continue to fall and results are broadly the same as last year with 77.6% of students awarded A*-for French, 81.9% for German, and 69.2% for Spanish.
Qualifications Wales Chief Executive Philip Blaker. said: “It will be difficult to make any meaningful comparisons between this year’s GCSE results and those of previous years.
“With the scale and complexity of the changes this year, we’d caution against drawing conclusions based on simplistic comparisons between results from this summer and previous years.” said Chief Executive Philip Blaker.
“There has been a significant shift in the size and nature of the cohort taking GCSE exams this summer, as well as changes to many of the exams themselves, so it’s not possible to draw any firm conclusions from these results.”
One example was science where more pupils took GCSE rather than BTEC science this year after vocational results were taken out of school performance measures, he said.
EDUCATION Secretary Kirsty Williams has urged people not to compare this summer’s GCSE results with previous years, or those across the border, because of what she described as a complex set of changes to entry patterns and exam reforms.
She spoke out after the overall fall in Wales’ GCSE pass rate this year for the second year running. The dip in the proportion of teenagers getting five A* to C grades comes despite a rise in England.
Ms Williams said she was confident Wales was on the right path with GCSE reforms, that Wales’ new GCSEs are comparable with those across the UK and that standards have been maintained.
She said a rise in A*s and As awarded for GCSEs to 18.5% should give people confidence.
The Education Secretary warned there was still too much difference in individual school and local authority results and this would be looked at in detail.
She said: “We should not be making simplistic comparisons because of the changes in the cohort with on going early entry and there are 15 new qualifications being examined for the first time.
“There are lots of things going on which mean we should avoid simplistic comparisons with different year groups because there is so much reform in the system.”
Factors that have affected results include a fall in overall entries, a rise in science GCSE entries and the on-going impact of early entry which the Welsh Government has moved to end.
Looking at results for 16 year-olds only, that shows results in English language have been maintained and have risen in maths, the Education Secretary said.
That did not show up in the overall summer results because some of them took maths and English early aged 15.
There has also been a 50% rise in numbers of pupils taking science GCSEs, which has affected results. Changes to school performance measures mean only GCSE science marks count, not vocational BTEC science qualifications.
“There has been a culture change in
science,” said Ms Williams.
“We have been very clear to schools that we want as many pupils as possible to have the opportunity to do science GCSEs. We were very concerned previously that too many children did not have that opportunity.”
While there has previously been criticism that Wales does not push its highest achievers enough the rise in top grades showed this was being addressed, she added, but attention must not drift from the lower end of the scale where results for lower achievers have fallen.
“I am constantly looking to see how we can make more improvements. What we need to do is examine very carefully individual school, local education authority and school consortia results so we can dig deeper.”
Citing Cardiff’s Eastern High as one school which has improved results she said she hoped teachers there could share their good practice with others.
“Sharing good practice is key and we want to lessen variation in the system.
“We will analyse ruthlessly these sets of GCSE data to inform us where to go forward so we can drive improvement across the system.
“We want to analyse how individual schools have done and we want to close the attainment gap and have more children getting the grades they need to facilitate their next steps.. We need to make sure the needs of all learners are addressed.”
On Wales’ GCSE reforms she said teachers had worked hard to make the new exams work
There is now less emphasis on assessment and course work and more of the final result is from the exam.
“What we know is that we have maintained standards.
“We can have confidence that our GCSEs are comparable with GCSEs taken elsewhere in the UK and are preparing them for the next steps whether that is continuing studying or looking to do vocational, post16 qualifications or entering the world of work or apprenticeship.
“We can have confidence our exams are rigorous and equivalent to those in all parts of the UK.”
And she said Wales has no plan to follow England which has introduced new number grades for GCSEs.
She said Wales A* was equivalent to England’s top number grade 9 and that the 9 is not above an A* or equivalent to an A** as some commentators have suggested.