All about GCSEs

GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) were brought in in 1986 to replace O-levels.

In schools, they are usually taken in years ten and eleven, but can be taken by anyone at a relevant school or other exam centre.

They are a stepping stone to further education. Some students take only GCSEs during years ten and eleven, while others take a combination of GCSEs and more vocational courses, such as BTECs.

Exam boards

There are many GCSE courses covering almost all imaginable subjects. Each is created in the UK by one of the five main exam boards.  AQA, Edexcel and OCR and the main three in England, although WJEC is used occasionally. WJEC is more common in Wales, naturally, and CCEA is used in Northern Ireland.

AQA – http://www.aqa.org.uk. The  Assessment and Qualifications Alliance.  AQA is an independent registered charity.

Edexcel – http://www.edexcel.org.uk. Edexcel is part of Pearson plc, the largest education publisher.

OCR – http://www.ocr.org.uk. Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations. OCR is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group which is a department of the University of Cambridge and Europe’s largest Assessment agency.

WJEC – http://www.wjec.co.uk. Previously the Welsh Joint Education Committee, is a consortium of local education authorities in Wales. It is now a registered charity owned by the 22 local authorities in Wales.

CCEA – http://www.ccea.org.uk. Northern Ireland Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment.

The boards compete with each other. Schools are free to choose which exam board they use for each subject. They can even use more than one exam board for a single subject, enabling them to offer different courses in, say, Science, to different pupils. It’s not uncommon to find a student following one exam board for core science in year ten and then changing to another in year eleven for additional or additional applied science.

This means that you must be very clear about the exact names of the courses your teenager is following.

You can phone the exam boards with queries and I’ve found that they are very helpful.

Grades

Grades are from G up to A*. If you don’t get a G, you’ll be classified U, which stands for unclassified.

All grades are said to be passes, except U. However, grade C is often seen as a cut-off between success and failure. This is not really fair – there are many further courses available to you if you only get grade Ds. However, to go on to the traditional higher education of A-levels and their equivalents, you certainly need at least a C and usually a B.

Going to college for a BTEC or Apprenticeship may require just five passes at grade C including Maths and English, so a C grade is often seen as an important cut-off point.

The key is to work towards grades with the end in mind. Rather than your teenager just working their socks off to get the best grades possible in all subjects, decide with them what their goals are for the next stage in their education or career. The most obvious reason for going for good grades is to qualify for further education courses, such as A-level or a vocational qualification. Grades can also be important for University entrance, although it is the A-level grades that ultimately count. However, when you apply to University, you don’t know your grades, so they may decide to offer you an interview, or not, based on the GCSE grades.

I’ve had many students who have wasted lots of crucial time on coursework for relatively unimportant subjects. Occasionally, it may be best to abandon a subject completely in order to make sure of certain grades in the important subjects – especially maths and English.

So, do you really need top grades in all subjects, or should you concentrate on just a few key ones?

GCSE Tiers

In some GCSE courses everyone sits the same exam and therefore has a chance of getting a top grade. Others, including the core subjects of Maths, Science and English, are different. In these there are two tiers of exam entry, higher and foundation. The grades you can get will depend on the tier you are entered for.

The foundation tier exam covers grades from G to C. Even if you get 100% in the exams, you will only get a C grade.

The higher tier exam covers D to A*, so it overlaps a little with the foundation tier.

It is important to know from the teachers, as soon as possible, which tier they are intending to enter your child for, as this may change your study priorities considerably as well as your child’s goals for the next stage in their education. The key situation is one in which your child is borderline between foundation and higher. If they are entered for the foundation tier, but they feel that they are capable, with effort, of more than a C grade, then you should talk to the teacher about changing to higher tier. At least you’ll want a good reason for entering them for foundation. If the teacher is not impressed, your teenager will just have to knuckle down and work hard in class and try to impress them enough for a change of heart closer to the exam. It is possible to change tiers right up to the exam, although most schools will tell you otherwise..

Modular or Linear?

Some GCSE courses are made up of units (modules). Exams are taken at the end of each unit plus a longer terminal paper at the end of the course. These are called modular, or Unitised, courses.

Others have only one exam at the end of course. Your school will decide which syllabus is followed.

A single school may choose to teach more than one course for a particular subject, offering, for example, OCR modular and Edexcel linear for Maths. They then have the flexibility to enter students for the course that they consider the most suitable.

Modular courses have the advantage that fewer topics have to be covered for a given exam, so there is less chance of forgetting. But if you are a slow starter, and get poor grades in the first modules, then that can count against you, whereas if you take two years to get going, perhaps you’ll do better with a linear course. It may be possible to sit the linear exam instead of the final module in this case, (thus abandoning the previous modules) though your school may not agree to it.

In future, beyond 2012, the government intends that all courses will be linear, which reduces the paperwork that teachers have to deal with by a huge amount!

If you have questions about this topic, do ask me. Use the contact form below.