Excellent GCSE results bears testament to the amazing work of teachers and lecturers in the most challenging education climate. This year’s GCSE results revealed the outstanding effort of teachers throughout the UK who have persevered through slashed funding, staff shortages and constant policy changes to deliver the highest quality of education opportunities to our next generation.
50,000 students achieved grade 9s – two thirds of which were girls, and an incredible 2,050 students achieved grade 9s in all three subjects. Grade 7 equates to a traditional A, with grades 8 representing A* and 9 equating to a new grade of A**.
Results were as expected within the ‘comparable outcomes’ parameters.
Overall pass rates dipped but only by 0.6% which is safely within the 1% dip needed to spark a review of the exam difficulty.
Since 2002, the possibility of students being unfairly disadvantaged by being the first to sit new exams has been mitigated by applying the statistical leveller known as ‘comparable outcomes’. This is the concept that there should be relatively little change in overall performance at the point when new qualifications are introduced; changes of more than 1% in results from year to year are rare in cohorts of this national size.
Resits are a poverty issue - disadvantaged boys trail behind.
The Education Policy Institute report ‘Closing the Gap?’ has rightly earned its question mark as it shows that attainment for disadvantaged continues to be lower than average. Since 2007, we have only improved the situation by 3 months for 16-year-olds. At that rate, they note, it would take until 2070 for us to see equal attainment for students regardless of their wealth.
GCSE Funding for FE called into question.
One daunting injustice in further education that rears its head at this time each year is the shocking disparity in per-head funding between schools and colleges.
For further education institutions, the challenge of uplifting disadvantaged students is even more acute all the while their GCSE courses attract less funding per student in college than in a school. Furthermore, colleges don’t attract the pupil premium funding that schools do for disadvantaged students, which means that budgets are skimmed from other courses while, ironically, they see a high volume of resitters who have not successfully been advanced during their time at secondary school despite the additional £1,000 annually.
Now is the time for the bodies that represent further education to stand up and make an impact when parliament returns to session this month.
A last-minute staffing panic for course providers.
This year, schools and colleges were more challenged than in previous years because of the grading change from A-G to 1-9. For colleges particularly, staffing levels are pivotal on enrolments, which are dependent on GCSE results – for courses and retakes. This year, not only were the new grades incomparable and GCSE exams harder, the prior attainment of the English literature students was lower as 41% more young learners opted to take advantage of English literature now qualifying as a ‘core literacy pass’. For many colleges and sixth forms, course sizes have only just been confirmed so teachers and lecturers can now be secured.
If you are available to teach in further education this year, please get in touch urgently.
Teachers in all phases contribute to a learners’ knowledge and skills demonstrated in their GCSEs, so if you taught students of any age this year – well done, and thank you.
About the author
Katie Newell
Katie Newell BA(Hons) PGCE is an ex-primary school teacher, Head of Maths, Head of Year five and languages specialist. Katie qualified in Psychology at Liverpool then specialised in Primary Languages for her PGCE at Reading. Before teaching, Katie was a financial commentator and is now the Content Manager for eteach.com and fejobs.com. Katie feels passionately that teachers are the unsung heroes of society; that opening minds to creative timetabling could revolutionise keeping women in teaching, and that a total change to pupil feedback is the key to solving the work life balance issue for the best job in the world.