A 9 in 2018 is now the top GCSE grade if you live in England, but was the bottom grade previously (Tougher GCSEs hit the mark as 16-year-olds get improved grades, 24 August). If you took English or Maths GCSE last year, 9 was the top grade, but it wasn’t for any other subject. Some boards, plus Northern Ireland and Wales have retained A-C pass grades. All numbers are being translated into the alphabetical system so that the new grades can be understood.
It should be obvious that all employers in the UK will appreciate the nuances of meaning in every job applicant’s GCSE grades in terms of when and where they were taken.
Merv Lebor
Leeds
• When GCSEs were introduced in 1988 the laudable intention was to replace outmoded segregated syllabuses and examinations with an assessment system that would demonstrate what candidates knew, understood and could do. As it turns out, one norm-referenced system has been replaced by another. As exemplified in last week’s results, the fact remains that each grade is only available to a prescribed percentage of students. Moreover, even if it was clear what each student at a particular grade knew, understood and could do, the lowest grades would still be considered as failures. When we use educational achievement at 16 to rank young people all we are doing is creating an entirely artificial scarcity. It is time to consign “terminal” examination at 16 to history; norm-referencing of children will always be an exercise in humiliation that puts too many off developing as lifelong learners.
The real purpose of these terminal examinations is to demonstrate school accountability and to promote schools as an aspect of the economic market place. Such a function could be less harmfully established through the randomised rating of samples of pupils.
Frank Newhofer
Oxford
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