30th May 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
With the so many GCSE exams happening at the moment, the BBC has published an article on how the exams have changed with the new grading system, 9-1. The format will be unfamiliar for a few years while everyone gains an understanding of what has changed, and how the new grades compare with the old A*-G grading system.
The new system was proposed by Michael Gove, when he was the education secretary, in an attempt to make the exams more challenging and rigorous. Roughly speaking 9, 8 and 7 will replace A* and A; three distinct grades providing more differentiation among students at the top end. 6, 5 and 4 replace B and C, but 5 will now be considered a ‘strong pass’ and 4 a ‘standard pass’.
Ofqual say that a similar proportion of students will get 9-7 as got A* and A, and 6-4 as got B and C. However, they also say that direct comparisons over simplify the changes. Anyone achieving a 9 will have performed exceptionally, and there will be fewer 9 grades than there were A* grades. Also, a 4 (standard pass) may not be seen in the same way as the old C grade.
The suggestion is that schools will now push harder for a 5, rather than a 4 to ensure that students achieve a strong pass, and because school league tables are going to state the proportion of students getting 5 or above in maths and English. This won’t mean that a student who gets a 4 won’t have passed, but it does push standards and encourages schools to demand a slightly level of performance than previously.
The new grading system was actually introduced for the first time last year for English and Maths, but it’s this year when many more of the popular subjects will be graded in the same way. The more peripheral subjects will be phased into the new system over the next couple of years. This means that some students will be awarded GCSEs in a mixture of grade systems for a while, but only for a few years.