GCSE
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988.
[1] Each GCSE qualification is offered as a specific school subject, with the most commonly awarded ones being: English literature, English language, mathematics, science (double & triple), history, geography, art, design and technology (D&T), business studies, economics, music, and modern foreign languages (E.g. Spanish, French, German) (MFL).
[4] Studies for GCSE examinations take place over a period of two or three academic years (depending upon the subject, school, and exam board).
There was a previous attempt to unite these two disparate qualifications in the 1980s, with a trial ‘16+‘ examination in some subjects, awarding both a CSE and an O-Level certificate, before the GCSE was introduced.
Between 2005 and 2010 a variety of reforms were made to GCSE qualifications, including increasing modularity and a change to the administration of non-examination assessment.
[9] From 2015 a large-scale programme of reform began in England, changing the marking criteria and syllabi for most subjects as well as the format of qualifications and the grading system.
Other changes include the move to a numerical grading system to differentiate the new qualifications from the old-style letter-graded GCSEs, publication of core content requirements for all subjects and an increase in longer, essay-style questions to challenge pupils more.
X grades are also sometimes used for other purposes on rare occasions, such as to indicate that an examiner found offensive material or hate speech within a pupil’s answers.
Since 2017 in England (and in Wales and Northern Ireland on qualifications from the English-based awarding bodies) most GCSEs have been assessed on a nine-point scale, using numbers from 9 to 1, and a U (unclassified) grade for achievement below the minimum pass mark.
Examination results are released by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents the main GCSE awarding organisations.
[28] In England these results then go on to inform league tables published in the following academic year, with headline performance metrics for each school.
These new rules required that 100% of the assessment in a GCSE be submitted in the final examination series, at the same time as applying for certification of the full qualification.
In practical and performance subjects, they generally have a heavier weighting to reflect the difficulty and potential unfairness of conducting examinations in these areas.
Since the 2010s reform, the availability has been cut back, with mostly only design and technology subjects and performing arts retaining their controlled assessment contributions.
The balance between controlled assessment and examinations is contentious, with the time needing to be set aside for coursework sessions being seen as a burden on the school timetable.
Leading universities often take into account performance at GCSE level, sometimes expecting applicants to have a high proportion of top grades.
The international version of the GCSE is the IGCSE, which can be taken anywhere in the world and includes additional options relating to coursework and the language the qualification is pursued in.
The education systems of current and former British territories, such as Gibraltar,[40] and Nigeria, also offer the qualification, as supplied by the same examination boards.
However, entry requirements differ at each university and may take subsequent work history after high school in place of A-levels/AP for future study applications.
Department of Education data shows that the relative performance gap between girls and boys widened under GCSEs, compared with O-Levels.
[52] Senior school leaders, the NSPCC, and Childline have expressed concern that GCSEs in their current exam-only format are too stressful and will lead to mental health crises.
They found reports of panic attacks, sleepless nights, depression, extreme fatigue, self-harming, and suicidal thoughts.
[58][59] The extent of the switching away from the terminal exam only GCSE to the IGCSEs in public and private schools was revealed in answers to a parliamentary question posed by Labour MP Lucy Powell in November 2018.
[60][61] Michael Gove, the architect of these reformed examinations, said in 2009: "Denying IGCSEs in core subjects to children in state schools will only serve to increase the level of inequality in education''.
However, in the Physics paper 1 exam, a topic that was stated as "Not Assessed" came up; AQA accepted the mistake and awarded all students the full 9 marks to the question.
The government announced that GCSE and A-level grades would be awarded through teachers' assessments based on mock exams, coursework and other available evidence,[72] moderated by a statistical standardisation model developed by Ofqual.
[77][78] The grades were decided based on previous mock exams, homework, classwork, and optional examinations set by Ofqual.
Former education secretaries who called for them to be scrapped included Lord Baker, Lord Blunkett and Alan Johnson, while those calling for changes, reforms or a review included Major and former education secretaries Baroness Morgan of Cotes, Justine Greening, Charles Clarke and Ruth Kelly.
Former Labour schools minister David Miliband also called for them to be scrapped, as did Conservative MP Robert Halfon, who chaired the Education Select Committee in the House of Commons between 2017 and 2022.
[86] In 2022, former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called for GCSEs and A-Levels to be scrapped and replaced by a new qualification and an examination based on the International Baccalaureate.
