The GCSE Introduction

The first GCSE Exams were taken in 1988 and are present to this very day of 2024. The main aim of them is to assess student's academic ability in a wider form of topics which can have impacts on where a student goes onto Further and Higher Education and even employment. The grading is currently 1-9 while a U (meaning Ungraded) Grade is at the lowest and 9 is the highest. It was originally A*- G with A* at the top and G at the lowest, however, the grading system changed to numbers in 2017.

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GRADING SYSTEM​

U - lowest grade (means 'Ungraded)

1 - equivalent to F

2 - equivalent to E

3 - equivalent to D

4 - equivalent to C

5 - equivalent to C

6 - equivalent to B

7 - equivalent to A

8 - equivalent to A*

9 - highest grade​, equivalent to A*

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To move onto a Sixth Form, most students need to achieve at least five Grade 4s or 5s. If they do not meet the requirement grades, they can be rejected from a Sixth Form. There are many diverse opinions on this, but this can be incredibly discriminatory and especially for those with diagnosed and undiagnosed special educational needs of which many students have. Other reasons are because the grading does not always give a full representation of a student's fuller understanding as in many exams, the topics are somewhat combined together and not spread out into separate sections.

 

Therefore, an examiner cannot exactly define where in a subject a student's strengths and weaknesses lie which I do not believe is a particularly constructive form of examining someone. This is because of the narrower evidence of a student's overall understanding of a subject.