At any level within the sector, there are very few who will defend the GCSE resit system. In fact, the majority would argue it is damaging to students and a logistical nightmare to organise. It is clear this model has and continues to fail our students.
This year, 133,411 students re-sat their English and maths GCSEs. That is over 30,000 more students than the previous year. Only 17 per cent of students achieve a grade 4 or above in English and 15 per cent in maths in FE.
To understand the problem we must start in our schools. There is clearly a crisis in the teaching of maths and English (and some would argue in the school system itself). This year, almost one-third of school students failed to achieve a grade 4 in maths and English.
We can continue the previous pattern and blame teachers, parents, students or the long-lasting impact of Covid. But if we do, we will not arrive at the root cause of why so many fail to achieve a grade 4 in English and maths.
Regressive reforms
In 2010, then-secretary of state for education Michael Gove made some of the most far-reaching ‘reforms’ to education in a generation. Doing so, he chillingly spoke about the ‘tyranny of contextualised learning’.
Four years after rolling out these changes, speaking at the 2014 Education Reform Summit, he boasted about how successful they had been. “We all share a moral purpose,” he said, “liberating individuals from ignorance, democratising access to knowledge, making opportunity more equal, giving every child an equal chance to succeed.”
Yet on every one of these indicators, young peoples’ experience of education has worsened.
Gove’s reforms were not new, modern or progressive. They were a throwback to the 19th century utilitarian education system, with rote learning was at its heart and all assessment through exams. They produced a narrow exam factory approach to English and maths which has failed young people.
Some within the leadership of the education sectors raised an eyebrow or two. There was huffing and puffing, but no one challenged these obviously destructive changes.
The change we need
We now have a new Labour government which is promising to review the compulsory GCSE resit system. But if, at long last, is going to be scrapped, we need to also look at the nature of English and maths qualifications.
We must move on from the sterile binary debate between functional skills and GCSEs, and design a qualification that allows young people to develop their critical thinking skills. Exam-based assessments must be replaced with a far more liberating project-based learning approach to English and maths.
While the impact of lockdown can still be felt, poverty is a far greater barrier to young people and adults’ ability to learn. This is why the debate around scrapping the two-child benefit cap is an educational issue as well.
Therefore, alongside a genuine reform of current qualifications, we need significant funding into our support services such as additional learning services (ALS). These have disgracefully been decimated over the past decade or more. Without this, any new reforms will not be able to deliver a better learning experience.
The Association of Colleges has rightly called on the new government to change the re-sit system. But now is not the time for timidity. We must be bold in our approach to genuine progressive reform to the teaching and learning of English and maths. It deserves and needs it.
Compulsion cannot be a part of any new system. Students must be inspired to learn – not forced.
It’s wonderful to have this debate but AoC is not fit for purpose. FE teachers are now public servants, and there needs to be more fluidity between primary, secondary and FE to create a holistic approach and not an exam one. Let us build confidence not league tables.
As an ex-English teacher and ex-College Principal I completely agree with everything Sean says. Gove’s curriculum reforms have had a disastrous impact on students who are not academic high-flyers, disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds. I’d add two more things. First, the demotivation of young people who feel they are “failures” at 16 because of maths and English results has I feel contributed to the upsurge in mental health problems. Secondly, although adult re-sit students generally do better, it’s still a significant and unnecessary hurdle for hard working adults trying to get back into education to improve their lives and careers.
The phrase “project based learning” sends chills down my spine.
I would not disagree that English and maths resits are a disaster. I don’t think think the qualification is functional in its nature. What the sector needs to lobby for is a reform of the reformed functional skills qualifications.
The truth of the matter is that “rote learning” is not as bad as it is made out to be, all teachers can ensure knowledge is passed to learners through carefully crafted pedagogy and your own distinct style and personality can very much come through in that too.
Do not bash tried and tested pedagogy, this is actually what creates two tiers – we just need qualifications that are fit for purpose. If there are to be exams attached, fine, so be it, but they should not require advanced knowledge to pass at Level 2.
I’m a maths teacher in an FE college. It is common to see students resit maths GCSE in college for two or three years straight. Combining school and colleges exams and “must feel like the real exam” mocks. That is two formal maths exams a year. One set of maths exams involved three 1.5 hour exam papers.
Much of the packed syllabus is to prepare for A levels in maths or sciences (which it does poorly), our students will never sit e.g childcare students.
None of the content is applied or relevant and where it is abstract or beautiful maths the content is rushed and ideas covered superficially. There is no sense that maths can be a useful component to solve cross-disciplinary problems. As it is in the real world.
The exam is norm referenced. That means grade boundaries shift according to the average scores. One kid missed a pass by one mark for three years in a row, each time a higher score. Only for it to fall the year after.
Rather than help them develop it is a steeple chase to “cover every topic” so we can say we did our job. This is exactly the wrong way to help those left behind. You never have time to let students unpack and connect ideas. One minute angle facts, the next probability, etc I watch student regurgitate how to factorise an expression but have no idea why one would want to do because they were taught the skill to gain a point in a test.
Predictably it leads to a deep loathing of maths and education in young people and needless barriers to employment and progression. Their self esteem is smashed over and over again.
Makes me so angry. It is basically child abuse. 70-80% of students fail to gain a 4 in colleges every year despite many doing so well on their main courses, and then are told they can’t get jobs or study more.
We could do so much better to help students love rather than despise learning.
You are so right, I have a family member who now has 6 GCSE Maths certificates at grade 3, based on one or two hours a week of extra tuition, some years, on a day without any other sessions timetabled. I wish he could have completed a functional skills assessment during his time in FE to give him a better employment opportunity.
These young people have had 4 or 5 lessons a week at school without meeting the requirements and are now expected to achieve miracles in perhaps 2 lessons a week in one year at college.
I’m amazed we have continued for so long with this irrational and cruel system.
All it does is set up thousands of young people to more disappointment, disillusion and disaffection.
We need a radical rethink for these young people.
They need the years at college, but they don’t need this ridiculous treadmill.
Two points in this interesting article that we mustn’t lose sight of. Firstly, Sean’s almost throw away point about the crisis in teaching of maths and English. If we were able to address the issue of recruitment and retention of teachers and lecturers then we’d go a long way to delivering some well intentioned policies that simply do not have the resources to deliver effectively.
Secondly, the link between attainment and poverty is also key. Nine pupils in every class of 30 are said to be living in poverty. Similarly then, if we do not address this issue then we can make all the policy changes we like, but we will still have failed to create an education system fit for all.