According to Gove they are, so he has decided to make things a bit more tricky and make them do all their exams in one go. Well this is good news for one zillionaire that I know. The need to attend horse shows will now only be interrupted the once by examination swotting.
We do suspect that something isn't right. More and more students getting A and even A*. Are our children really getting that much more clever and better educated? 11% achieved grade A or above in 1990 and a staggering 22.4% achieved this in 2012.
How are they really doing now? An A grade now means a UMS % score of about 80 or above. A fifth getting 80% plus sounds good. UMS was originally brought in to make minor adjustments year by year due to slight differences in the exam or bad snow. This is now being abused. When we look at what our children have to achieve in raw score terms, things start to look very different. For their first OCR Gateway biology exam for example, in 2013 they had to achieve only 60% to get an A*, 49% to get an A, and a mere 28% to get a C.
Even back in 2010 things were more realistic. For an equivalent OCR gateway biology exam raw % thresholds were A* 77% A 65% C 40%.
I remember that year of students - a hard working bunch. 22.6% got an A or above in their GCSE exams overall.
The board will justify these differences in biology by saying that the exams were changed. A cosmetic re-arrangement would be an accurate description.
Actual performance in the sciences is not good because the subject is getting harder. There is much more to know and understand. To study Chemistry, Biology and Physics as separate subjects, students take 6 fairly demanding exams. Doing all six in one go will make it very hard to do at all well in real terms.
Currently teachers are not covering the subject fully, because they know that they have an easy target to meet. 28% in biology to get a C which can be achieved with heavy last minute revision of the top line. Students go on to do A level and have a terrible time because they are just not prepared with a 50% A grade. This situation will get worse by condensing the examinations into one sitting.
It is my belief that the separate sciences should have three exams in
year 10 and three in year 11, as they do now. The content of the exams does not need to change. What does need to change is that there should be more realistic grade thresholds and more extensive teaching of the more able.
TellNoOneOK
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Secondary education
Are GCSEs too easy?
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TellNoOneOK · 07/11/2013 01:06
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