The government’s curriculum and assessment review should look at the policy of forcing pupils who don’t pass GCSE English and maths to resit the subjects, the head of exams regulator Ofqual has said.
Today’s GCSE results saw both a reduction in the proportion of 16-year-olds achieving a grade 5 English and maths grades of 4 or above – a “standard pass” according to the government – and a fall in the pass rate for those re-taking the subjects.
Introduced in 2014, the government’s resits policy requires students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 to continue to work towards achieving these qualifications as a condition of their places being funded.
Students who achieve a grade 3 have to retake their GCSE, while students with a grade 2 or below can either take a functional skills level 2 or resit their GCSE.
Pupils ‘consigned to a remorseless treadmill’
Today’s data has prompted fresh criticism of the policy, with leaders warning that pupils who don’t pass are “consigned to a remorseless treadmill of resits”.
Sir Ian Bauckham told FE Week’s sister title Schools Week he did not have view on the policy itself, which is a “matter for government”, but that it would be “helpful for the government’s curriculum and assessment review to take a look at this question, assess all the evidence in the round and reach a conclusion”.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson last month appointed Professor Becky Francis, the head of the Education Endowment Foundation, to lead Labour’s curriculum and assessment review.
Labour’s policy under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was to scrap the resits requirement, but the party has not re-committed to this under Sir Keir Starmer.
Asked if he had advised Phillipson to include the re-sits policy in the review, Bauckham said: “I think it would just be a very good thing if the curriculum and assessment reviews took that on board. Okay, I don’t think the secretary of state needs my advice on that.”
Eight in ten don’t pass re-takes
Of 185,727 pupils aged 17 and older who re-took GCSE maths this summer, just 32,316, or 17.4 per cent, achieved a grade 4 or above. Of the 148,569 who re-took English, just 31,050, or 20.9 per cent, achieved the benchmark.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was a “huge achievement that so many young people will now progress with confidence onto courses in colleges and sixth forms”.
However, he said “we must recognise that this is not the story in England for a significant proportion of students who fall short of achieving at least a grade 4 GCSE pass in English and maths”.
These pupils “will be consigned to a remorseless treadmill of resits in post-16 education under rules drawn up by the last government”.
Paul Whiteman, leader of the NAHT, said the resit policy “must be scrapped”.
“Those students who haven’t achieved the required grade are forced into repeated resits which are demotivating and can lead to disengagement with their learning
“For some young people alternative qualifications in maths and English would be a more positive and effective way to demonstrate their achievements and government policy should allow much more flexibility.”
Cath Sezen, director of education policy at Association of Colleges, added: “After 10 years of condition of funding the time is right to review government policy and look at a different way to support students to gain crucial English and maths skills, rather than putting them through a system which can leave many of them feeling that they have failed again and again.’’
Tinkering with resit policy for post 16 is not the answer needed to this national embarrassment that sees so many 16years fail to complete with both a pass in maths and English. Current educational policy and practice but also the school teaching profession have a lot to answer for.
Why does the public put up with this? One can only assume that they don’t realise the extent of this failure in the school system. In fairness, the “reporting systems” do rather try to hide this situation behind overall pass rate data, and of course OFSTED inspection regime also fails to call this out for them!
Significant change is needed and the current government need to respond accordingly. Policy change and action is needed much earlier in the school cycle than when the age of 16 years is reached! Is it likely that the current government will act less like a teachers trade union and more like a radical ideas generating force for good?
The elephant in the room is 11+ years of education and no grasp of the basics in those 2 subjects. Get rid of the notion of “should” in primary, secondary and FE phases – i.e. “they should be able to do A,B,C at this stage…” while just carrying on when it is clear that there are quite many that can’t do the FUNDAMENTALS for further progress. There is no need to teach everything, that is not what teachers are there for.
Maybe have the option to resit but do not force them; when they find that they need E & M more than they think, they will pass as the effort will be there.