The government’s curriculum and assessment review should look at the policy of forcing pupils who don’t pass GCSE English and maths to re-sit 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 re-sits policy forces 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 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 re-sits 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. I don’t think the secretary of state needs my advice on that.”
Eight in ten fail 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 ASCL leaders’ union, 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.”
My son loves his welding course and has passed level 1 to continue on level 2 but has just failed maths and English again and now is forced to redo them for the third time to be allowed to continue on his welding course. He won’t therefore be able to work last time around his course, preventing him from gaining work experience and earning so money. The conclusion will be he will drop out of his course due to being forced to spend two days a week redoing Gcse English and maths, the college (which has a brilliant welding provision) does not allow functional skills as an alternative so he is likely to end up leaving all together. The system is ridiculous and is resulting in thousands of students being disengaged in college courses, how does that actually benefit the country when skills such as welding are in great need?