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15 May 2026

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Opinion

GCSEs, A-levels and other school qualifications should be scrapped

We should get rid of GCSEs and A-levels and make universities design their own entrance systems, argues Ed Cadwallader As the curtain rises on Michael Gove’s attempt to rebrand ‘999’ as a cause for celebration, lots of people will be asking whether the switch from letter to number grades at GCSE was worth the millions […]

School leaders: your ‘5 or above’ GCSE percentage is a headline measure

A lot of school leaders don’t seem to realise that the new “5 and above” rate is the measure on which the school will be judged. That’s because Justine Greening managed to bury the news. Back in March, she said in a letter to the education select committee that the new GCSE grade 4 would […]

GCSE Results 2017: Are changes in your results normal?

GCSE results are out. Each year Ofqual produces boring-sounding variability charts. It’s a dull name, but very important data. These charts show how many centres, i.e. schools or colleges, dropped or increased their results compared with the previous year. This means that if you dropped, say, 25 per cent in one subject, you can see […]

The reformed GCSEs are the qualifications this country needs

My daughter may not get the top grade but I’m cheering in the new GCSEs because they promise to be the qualifications our young deserve, says educationalist Jo Saxton This week, some 300,000 of the nation’s young will receive their GCSE results. Among them will be my daughter. Am I worried about the fact that […]

Which accountability measures should schools prioritise?

With the DfE and Ofsted making clashing requirements, Liam Collins is forced to wonder which accountability measures and diktats schools should be prioritising Let us all understand this correctly: the new key stage 4 accountability measure will be the lever that gets schools to enter every pupil into the now infamous five (effectively seven) Ebacc GCSEs. […]

A-levels 2017: School leaders, are your results normal?

A-level results are out, and Ofqual has released its usual series of graphs showing the dips and rises in grades. Each year on results day Ofqual also produces boring-sounding variability charts. It’s a dull name, but the data is important. These charts show how many centres (i.e. schools or colleges) dropped or increased their results […]

A-level results 2017: How Schools Week will report the day and what to look out for

Editor Laura McInerney explains how we are going to report Thursday’s A-level results For the past two A-level results days we focused our attention on secondary modern schools. We did this because readers told us they were sick of newspapers focusing on pupils who get all A*s, and given the last 12 months of grammar-fussing […]

Ignore the rise in school-led teacher training routes – universities are here to stay

The Department for Education’s recent Teacher Training Performance Profiles for 2015/16 prompted inevitable cries in the media of “the end of initial teacher training in universities”. They’re wrong, argues David Spendlove. Once again the DfE’s training figures, which showed an increase in school-led training, are more down to its own creative accounting than any radical […]