Fewer students to get top GCSEs says professor

Professor Alan Smithers also predicts that Government efforts to get schools to focus on core academic subjects could rescue modern languages after a decade of decline while leading to fewer students taking “sexy sounding” exams such as film, theatre and TV and expressive arts.

As the wait for GCSE results comes to an end tomorrow morning for thousands of school pupils, the headmaster of a leading private Yorkshire school has warned that the exam systems is “rotten” and has reduced education down to “a box ticking exercise”.

Jonathan Taylor, head of Bootham School in York, has also questioned why exam boards are being asked to control grade inflation at both A-level and GCSE.

Last week saw the level of top grades at A-level decline for the first time in more than 20 years and Prof Smithers of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University predicted that a similar situation could arise at GCSE.

In an attempt to halt grade inflation the exam regulator Ofqual will demand answers of exam boards which deliver big increases in results.

Prof Smithers told the Yorkshire Post that this approach coupled with a new science syllabus which was introduced in 2010 and tested on for the first time this summer could see the level of A and A* grades stall.

In 1988 when GCSEs were first sat less than half of the students sitting exams, 42.5 per cent, achieved A to C grades. Last year 69.8 per cent of GCSE exams sat were graded A to C. The level of As and A*s, introduced in 1994, has also risen year on year.

In 1988 eight per cent of GCSEs sat achieved an A compared with 23.2 per cent last year.

When the A* was first introduced it was awarded to just 2.9 per cent of entries. By last summer this had increased to 7.8 per cent.

Prof Smithers said: “Ofqual’s policy is if the boards can explain why the scores should go up, then that’s perfectly OK, it’s not a sort of straitjacket. Ofqual are keen to reduce the amount of inflation in the scores. Ofqual has expressed concern about science GCSEs, and it explicitly said it wanted more difficult science GCSEs.

“It’s the first time the new syllabus is being examined this year so we might expect to see a fall in various grades in science.

“I think the overall results this year will be similar to last year.” Two years ago the Government introduced the English Baccalaureate (E-bacc) as a performance measure designed to encourage schools to focus on traditional academic subjects.

It is awarded to every pupil who achieves at least six A* to C grades comprising maths, English, two sciences, a modern language and either history or geography.

Prof Smithers said: “It could save modern languages which have been in terminal decline since the last Labour government made it no longer compulsory to take them. German has gone down by 54.9 per cent in the last 10 years, French has gone down by 55.6 per cent. Schools obviously want to present the best possible picture of themselves and I think it would take a very confident school to decide to ignore these E-bacc subjects.”

He said the E-bacc could also lead to more students taking geography but have a negative impact on modern GCSEs such as film theatre and TV and expressive arts which had become popular in recent years.

On the eve of the latest GCSE results Mr Taylor told the Yorkshire Post that Bootham School might consider creating its own qualifications to sit alongside them to ensure pupils are stretched and get the chance to be creative,

He warned that the large scale marking of exams at both GCSE and A-level had reduced education to “ticking boxes” where teachers ensured pupils knew how to say the right things in exams in order to get top marks.

He said: “When I was a marker in the 80s if we saw a candidate who showed real flair and genius we could reward it with an A. In the current system where people have to cover certain areas to get the grades this sort of essay could be marked down.”

He said that private schools would increasingly look to create their own courses to complement GCSEs but would remain focused on A-levels at post 16 as it would be difficult to get universities to recognise individual school’s qualifications.