Gcse Results

[mikey4444]

Over half a million kids will receive their GCSE results today and I wish them Good Luck.

But I bet some stuffed shirt will appear will pop up on the media and say that exams were much harder years ago !

[Hypognosis]

What annoyed me most about that was that, for as many years as they've been doing all this bleating, they always seem to sidestep the whole business of the old mechanism of how grades used to be dished out.

One year might have a tough exam with top marks in the 80s percent. Top 2% would get the A grade. Following year's exam might have top marks in the 90s, scooping the A's and the 80 percent band fall into B grade.

Therefore Grades used to communicate something useful to employers - who are the best of this year's school leavers. It becomes an unfair system when people remain unemployed long enough that they're competing with a later year's set of school leavers and they were in a year where the A grade kids were particularly brilliant.

Nowadays, they probably struggle to sift between the large numbers of applicants who all have A-star grades... can't be easy.

[bibblebub]

keep them off the telly, all that american group hugging and OMGs - yuk

[murraymints]

Definitely dumbed down over the years....some pass at much less than 50%

[Hypognosis]

I could have saved myself all that typing if I'd waited 5 minutes - the pundit interviewed on BBC Breakfast was saying more or less what I was on about but as an explanation for why grades have dipped a little this year.

Evidently a source of anxiety for this year's leavers.

[douglas9401]

And the world turns.

[sandyRoe]

Yes, good luck to all who sat the exams.

[diddlydo]

Of course exams were much tougher years ago. For a start, an exam meant just that - an end of course test done in strict conditions in a limited time. No modular rubbish and certainly no "controlled assessments" done in class with wholesale cheating going on.

[Sqad]

mikey...quite right...the youth of today are as "bright as buttons."

[Prudie]

Just looked down at my soft v-necked sweater and realised - it's a stuffed shirt.

[Dusty Bin]

With you on that, bibblebub, but are results available to view online these days?

[daffy654]

No, results are not available to view online, at least not at my son's school. He has just gone to pick up his results and i'm anxiously awaiting his return.

[sherrardk]

Today's teenagers are not responsible for how the system works and I am sick of seeing people slagging off the results every year. The kids work hard to achieve the grades given the goalposts that are currently in place. Good luck and well done to them.

[daffy654]

He got:
History-A
English Language-A*
English Lit-A*
Drama-B
Spanish-B
Graphics-B
Biology-A
Chemistry-A
Physics-A
Geography-A
Maths-A*
ICT-Distinction

I am very proud of him considering all he has been though in his life :)

[rockyracoon]

Daffy, wow, what excellent results, I bet you're grinning from ear to ear.

Congrats to your son.

[daffy654]

Thanks rocky :)
My son being the perfectionist he is is a little disappointed in the 3 B grades :-/ Sometimes he infuriates me but this is what you get when you have a child with Aspergers Syndrome. lol

[rockyracoon]

Aw, Daffy, my daughter is very nitpicky about certain things so I can see where you're coming from, albeit on a much smaller scale. What is your son going to do now?

[pixie373]

Brilliant, daffy. Tell your son well done!

[jim360]

It's possible to criticise the exams without criticising the students. I worked hard to get my GCSE results, particularly the two English/ English Literature exams, and most students do work hard. But it's plain that over time the exams have got easier, not year-on-year but certainly now compared with 20, 30 years ago the Maths GCSE is easier. Of course it is. GCSE merged two separate qualifications, CSE and O-Level, that were at two different tiers of difficulty, and the result is something in between and probably closer to CSE with a few O-level bits thrown in.

If it's rude to kid to say that exams were much harder years ago, it's surely patronising to pretend that they weren't. Like my headteacher did at the time, as I recall. Like I said, I worked hard for my GCSEs, and so do most students. But I also knew that they weren't as rigorous as O-Levels were. This wasn't offensive, and it didn't devalue the achievements, as you can only tackle what's in front of you.

Good luck to all those who get their results today.

[Octavius]

I never got to go on telly when I got my 11 GCSEs (ok, 8...) but then again I went to school with people called Wayne, Darren and Cheryl, not Hugo Henrietta and Polly. I don;t think A* were invented in my time, least not for the kids in my school.....

[Hypognosis]

I must say that I'm impressed by the breadth of education being given these days. 12 subjects for Daffy jr (applause!) whereas it used to be 8 O-levels...

...I am struggling... and failing to avoid using the phrase "in my day". (shakes head)