2nd January 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Nearly 50,000 students who re-sat their English GCSE exams following poor grades in the summer, have just received their results. Reported on the BBC website, roughly a third of the students re-sitting their English GCSE received a C grade or higher, although it’s unclear how many of the students, who have now achieved a C grade (which is important because it’s the standard needed by many students to qualify for future study or a particular job), received a C or higher in the summer.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said that “Thousands of young people and their parents will be celebrating improved results this morning”. He added “however, to suggest that so many thousands of students have improved so dramatically in a period of weeks is further proof that their teachers’ original assessments were correct and that the summer results were not a true reflection of their achievement”.
The AQA exam board, which conducts more English GCSE exams than any other refuted Lightman’s statement. They said that of the candidates who retook an exam, 70% received the same grade as before, with 30% receiving a higher grade. This is in line with the proportion of improvement that AQA see every year.
Ofqual, the regulator of exams has upheld its defence of the decision to move the grade boundaries for GCSE English exams in the summer. They say that the boundaries had to be increased to maintain standards.