A piece in today’s Times by Rosemary Bennett (Education Editor), Nicola Woolcock (Education Correspondent), and Ryan Watts (something else). Emphases ours:
The proportion of pupils getting top grades at A level hit its highest in more than five years even though the reformed exams have been described as the toughest in a generation.
Pass marks were lowered to ensure that enough pupils got top marks, analysis by The Times has discovered.
At Edexcel, the pass mark for an E grade in biology was 24.3 per cent compared with 46 per cent in 2016, before the reforms. In physics it was 21 per cent compared with 50 per cent, in chemistry 22 per cent, against 56 per cent in 2016. A similar pattern emerged at AQA where the pass mark for biology was 19 per cent compared with 41 per cent in 2016.
The official figures showed that 26.4 per cent of exams taken were awarded an A* or A, the highest proportion since 2012.
Boys outperformed girls at the top end, awarded a higher proportion of A*s and As for the second year in a row. It is thought that the decision to scrap course work and modules favours boys’ way of working. [J4MB: Note the ideological bias here. Boys did better than girls because the manipulation designed to advantage girls over boys – teachers’ pro-girl bias manifested through continuous assessment – was ended. This ending of female privilege is spun as “the decision to scrap course work and modules favours boys’ way of working.”] The gender gap remains wide in subjects such as physics, where only 8,384 girls took the subject compared with 29,422 boys. However, more girls than boys studied biology. [J4MB: As we’d expect, on the grounds of gender-typical work ethic. Biology is a less challenging subject to study than, say, physics or mathematics.]
Maths is the most popular subject by far, with 97,627 pupils — one in eight — taking it.
Damian Hinds, the education secretary, said that the redesign of A levels would make them “more appropriate, better [at] preparing young people for moving on to the next stage”.
He told Today on BBC Radio 4: “Having exams at the end of the two years means that it is possible to consider the subject as a whole, to bring in all the different parts of it, to synthesise the different aspects of the subject in a way that is a little closer to undergraduate study.”
Exam boards defended the move to lower the bar, saying that it would be unfair to penalise the first few years of pupils taking the new exams, with teachers unfamiliar with the courses and the increased level of difficulties.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said that the reforms to create A levels that were “the toughest for a generation” were “a paradox”, adding: “This seems to be because Ofqual, the regulator, is propping them up so the students are not disadvantaged.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that this “propping up”, known as comparable outcomes, questioned whether the exam reforms had been worth it.
Parents would approve because it meant their child would not lose out. “But I think I would be saying, ‘So what was all that juggernaut of reform about, why did we do all that?’” he added.
Head teachers also said that the reforms were narrowing education, with more and more pupils taking three subjects rather than four because the content was so difficult.
There are benefits in pupils taking three subjects that support one another, such as maths, further maths and physics, rather than a spread including a humanities subject or an art.
Humanities are suffering. The numbers taking geography fell to 30,366, down by more than 4,000.
Science subjects continued to grow in popularity. Computer science was the fastest growing subject, and physics, chemistry and biology all had an increase in entries.
Heads are also attempting to estimate the impact of rising numbers of unconditional offers from universities.
At a school in the north of England A* to E passes collapsed after students received an “amazing” number of unconditional offers, according to TES.
The results were reported by the school to Partners in Excellence, a network of schools and sixth-form colleges in England and Wales. Sir John Rowling, group chairman, would not name the school, but said that its A*-E grades had fallen from 74 per cent last year to 14 per cent this year. A total of 40 pupils had received unconditional offers from universities. “Some kids were not even going to school after they received the unconditional offers,” he said. One pupil is off to university having secured two Us and an E, he added.
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