The Foundation in Election Year.

The General Election year is already bringing with it the expected pronouncements from politicians. Such interest is, of course, right and proper, but the Foundation will be vigilant over the coming months to challenge any pronouncements are not accurate and fair.

For example, The Guardian carried the following story on 31 December:

"Only one in 10 pupils achieve the government benchmark of five good GCSEs in some deprived neighbourhoods, according to analysis by the Tories.

In 24 areas in England, less than 15% of students got five passes at A* to C, including maths and English. The national average is 47.8%, while in some areas nine out of 10 children made the benchmark, the Conservatives said.

The poorest performing neighbourhood is in Grimsby, where six children out of 87 achieved five good GCSEs last year. Other low scoring zones included an area in the Wyre Forest, in the West Midlands, and parts of Bristol, Leicester, Portsmouth and Southampton.

The Tories analysed data from more than 6,700 neighbourhoods and found that in 113 of them, less than 20% of children got five good grades including maths and English. "

This may be accurate, but it does paint a much more negative picture than the figures seem to warrant.

Firstly, the story leads by saying that “only one in ten pupils attains the government benchmark of five good GCSEs” which sounds fairly bad. But read on and we see that this is ‘one in ten’ in ‘some deprived areas’. Not even ‘all’ deprived areas. No mention here about the other deprived areas – where, presumably far more than 10% attain the ‘benchmark’. And no mention at all of those deprived areas exceeding the benchmark.

And no mention of where this benchmark came from. Do you remember why “5 good GCSEs” became important? And what makes an A*-C pass ‘good’? Some of you will remember back to when we had ‘O’ levels and CSEs. ‘O’ levels were seen as being more academic, and so ‘better’ than CSEs. ‘O’ levels were taken mainly by Grammar School pupils, whilst Secondary Modern pupils mainly took CSEs. When the two systems were amalgamated into GCSEs, the grades A-C were deemed to be the equivalent to ‘O’ levels. So, a “good” GCSE pass is one that is deemed to be equivalent to an old ‘O’ level.

Yet during the Grammar and Secondary Modern era, only 15% of pupils went to Grammar Schools, and the great majority of pupils were not even entered for an ‘O’ level. Now we have almost 50% of pupils gaining the equivalent of 5 ‘O’ levels – and the story is presented as negative.

To be fair to The Guardian is does point out that:

The percentage of pupils getting free meals who achieved the equivalent of five or more A* to Cs rose from 23% to 49% between 2002 and 2009. For those who did not get free meals, the increase was from 54% to 73%.

These are very good figures and there is a very positive story here – but it was not the line chosen by the politicians.

But where did the figure 5 come from? Why is the benchmark 5 A*-Cs, and not 4 or 6? If you have any ideas on this, let me know.

Benchmark Creep

The tendency of goals to become minimum expectations seems to a feature of educational targets. This is particularly the case with SAT scores. We now read that Level 4 is the “expected” standard for all 11 year olds. Yet the National Curriculum states that Level 4 is the level expected for “the great majority” of children. It never was expected that all children would attain Level 4 by the age of 11. Yet somehow or other ‘benchmark creep’ has set in, and even though 80% attain level 4, it is presented in a negative way.

We also read that children who leave primary school without attaining Level 4 “cannot read or write”. Yet this is to misunderstand the demands of Level 3. Children attaining this level could almost certainly read all the newspapers who complain the most!

The Curriculum Foundation is as keen on high standards as anyone else, but we need to be accurate and professional in our analysis. We also know that the highest standards are attained by those schools that involve pupils in the widest and most exciting curricula, and by those schools that pay attention to underlying skills.

Help us be vigilant

If you ready any articles in newspapers, or hear pronouncements from politicians that need clarification or rebuttal, then please let us know. And please help write the clarification! Contact me on brianmale@curriculumfoundation.com

Dr Brian Male
CEO