Pupils celebrate record results

Yakub Qureshi

August 23, 2007

Submit Comments | Comments (36) | Previous | Next

Charlotte Lau from Trinity C of E High School, Hulme gained 6 A's and 5 A stars

PUPILS across Greater Manchester were today celebrating record GCSE results.

A number of schools and local authorities said pupils had achieved their highest-ever results and some pointed to significant improvements on last year.

In Oldham, where more than 3,200 students took exams this summer, some 59 per cent got at least five A* to C passes - compared with 55 per cent last year.

Hugh McDonald, the councillor responsible for the area's schools, said: "These results are brilliant news for the borough's secondary schools. A four per cent increase in one year is a massive leap forwards. This is a positive reflection of the hard work of pupils, high quality teaching and the close partnership between the council and schools."

Individual schools also highlighted the results of their pupils.

There was a massive boost in results at The Albion School in Salford as 52 per cent of pupils scored five good grades compared with 29 per cent previously.

Headteacher Steve Aveyard said: "We have smashed our targets and have more than doubled our results in the last two years. We are very proud of what has been achieved here in such a relatively short time."

Figures

And at the independent Manchester Grammar School, pupils also received record results. Every pupil got five A*-C grades and around 87 per cent of all grades were As, up 1 per cent up on last year.

Nationally more than 600,000 children were receiving GCSE grades. Official figures showed an improvement with 63.3 per cent of students getting grade C or above compared with 62.4 per cent last year.

There was a slight dip in the overall pass mark which remained high at 98 per cent and the number of students passing English, maths and science also rose.

In order to counter the criticism that too many students took "easy courses" education officials have adopted a new measurement which focuses on students' performance in English and maths.

The system looks at the number of students getting good (A*-C) grades in English and maths along with their top three other subjects.

Early indications show schools also boosted their performance in this category. In Oldham 40 per cent of pupils reached this benchmark compared to 35 per cent previously.

New laws this year mean all councils must contact all students who sit GCSEs to offer them college places or other training.

Speaking as the results were released today, education minister Jim Knight said he believed schools were teaching the right mix of the 3Rs along with relevant new subjects.

He said: "We expect an increasingly broad range of pupils to meet the demanding standards set at GCSE. This is a marked departure from the days of `O' Level when thousands of young people were simply written off at 14."

See next Wednesday's MEN for a GCSE supplement with all local results.

Are exams getting easier? Have your say.

Submit Comments | Comments (36) | Previous | Next

Showing comments 1 to 25 and replies | View All

dessie, manchester (23/08/2007 at 10:49)

sounds to me like its getting easier and easier to get good results at school and uni's now!!!

Peter (23/08/2007 at 12:35)

Just how many are cheating?
Mininture microphones, camera, mates on the internet using Wikipedia to relay all the answers back to them.

Ms D, Manchester (23/08/2007 at 13:50)

Well done to all those that worked hard and passed. My son who went to school in Oldham acheived 14 GCSE's, all between A* to C. Congrats to the teachers too who worked equally as hard to get the pupils through them.

Debbie Hughes (23/08/2007 at 16:27)

It annoys me when some people assume that exams are getting easier just because each year pass rates are getting higher. My son worked really hard to get the results he has, he passed all of his GCSE's and I am really proud of him.

Giles (23/08/2007 at 16:44)

We can all work hard. Some people who only get a low grade may find it harder than those who got a higher grade beacuse of natural ability.

They shouldn't just get rewarded for hard work, dear oh Lord.

In the real world it is hard work and ability that allows a man to get on. Saying that you worked hard shouldn't entitle anyone to the top awards.

With these kind of results all of them should be off to Oxbridge. They are getting easier, much easier.

It doesn't do as it will only mislead the blighters into having a deluded view of their brightness and they will get found out in the real world as has been reported this week whereby most can't string a sentence together, are arithmetically inept and are shirkers.

swinny, salford (23/08/2007 at 17:03)

I work at The Swinton High School and I know that the teachers and especially the pupils have all worked very hard to achieve these results. I find that the children are willing to put a lot of effort into passing these exams and to say they are getting easier isnt fair on the pupils. Give them some credit.

Karen Swindells

razza, Sale (23/08/2007 at 19:13)

I just wish to agree with the sentiments expressed by Ms Hughes.

It annoys me greatly that people think GCSEs are getting easier ... why dont they try doing 10 exams, including subjects that they may detest, with teachers who in some case have a complete lack of intellectual prowess.

Moreover, many people dont realise the complete lack of common sense shown by some exam boards, who accept ludicrous answers, but mark more advanced answers wrong.

Furthermore, even if exams are getting easier, many of the requirements for university courses are getting harder ... with medicine being the most obvious example.

Whilst it may be getting easier to pass exams, people shouldnt underestimate the difficulty for students to get the A* grade or the top 5s.

I hope people will stop knocking us, and congratulations to everyone who got their gcse grades today!

debbs, Manchester (23/08/2007 at 21:02)

My daughter has just completed her Yr 9 sats and so I know just how hard the majority of these kids have to work to gain the higher level GCSE's.
I feel these kids should be congratulated for their hard work and not criticized.
I wonder how many of the adults who complain 'how easy GCSE's are' , would actually be able to sit these exams and pass them themselves ? - Probably not many !

Colin W, Abroad (24/08/2007 at 09:18)

To Debbie Hughes and others, wake up. Exams at all levels including degrees are getting easier. I have taken a degree in engineering subjects in the 80s, 90s and just now in 2006 - the latter being so trivial it is little more thn an old A Level.
Admittedly children can only take the exams they are given, but with the rest of Europe laughing at the triviality of the UK education system.. especially compared with Sweden and Finland (which are touch), its only a metter of time before UK children become unemployable outside the sceptic Ilse

The Catcher, In the Rye (24/08/2007 at 11:37)

if these kids that you are all bragging about are so clever and have worked so hard, why are employers and universities complaining that kids lack basic education when they arrive.

The fact is that the level of spelling and grammar required has been reduced. The kids may have learned the facts but their ability to write them down coherently has dimished.

Now, no more bragging parents thank you.

Giles (24/08/2007 at 15:36)

My son got four 'A's. One in English, one in History and two in Mathematics.

Black Flag (24/08/2007 at 16:55)

Catcher, given the barely literate submissions which are posted on this site by people who are way past school leaving age, I find it hard to accept that the quality of spelling and grammar has reduced.

elena (24/08/2007 at 17:21)

Catcher in the Rye.

I got 5A*s and 5As.
Do you realise how insulting it is to hear that when I've just done what I feel is amazingly on my GCSE's. You may sit there and complain, but I actually went and sat my exams!

One day we're told that GCSEs and too easy. Then we are told that the government is planning to make them easier because not enough people are passing.

Then we get people like you saying that even if we do work hard for two years, do all the required pieces of coursework and perform well in the exams it still means nothing because generalising idiots like you will sit down at their computer and order that no one may brag because however well their child does in the exams, according to you they are still stupid.

Mrs McG, Exeter (24/08/2007 at 19:33)

My son, at 15, has just passed 11 GCSE's, 8 of them at A and above, including A*s in English, French and Maths. His year group was the first Year 10 cohort to be entered for all their GCSEs a year early. He now is going to spend 3 years studying A levels in order to be ready for the A* A level in 2010. His grammar school has planned ahead. It recognises that the brightest children don't need 3 years at key stage 3 and that the extra year is more valuable in the sixth form. This present year 10 GCSE results would have placed them 4th in the school league tables compared with children a year older. He has worked very hard not just for the last two years but for the 10 he has been at school. He is lucky in that he goes to a school that recognises the special needs of talented and gifted children and has provided an accelerated programme that has benefitted all of them, well done Colyton Grammar school for pioneering such a scheme, I'm sure lots of other schools will follow their example. Grammar schools succesfully deal with the most often ignored special needs - children with high ability!

Colin W, Abroad (25/08/2007 at 07:53)

To Debbs,
I will and have sat the GCSEs in 2005 as a bet with a friend who's daughter got good grades in her GCSEs. I took my original history O Level in 1982 and got a B grade. It was then a question of writing 5 essays in 2 hours and was quite touch in terms of time and the amount of knowledge you had to know - no trivial course work. This time I did no revision, 3 weeks refresher studying on European history and guess what an A*. Kind of blows your theory out of the water doesnt it. Next argument please ....

Antony (26/08/2007 at 18:42)

Colin, please don't let me interrupt you whilst you are eating your lemons.

Why can't you accept that our generation is just more intelligent, generally, than yours, and for sure, the next generation will be more intelligent than mine.

The only reason you are making these comments is because you're bitter and are jealous of our success.

I would like to try some of your O level papers, such as Maths, and you should sample how difficult and complex our Maths is today; we would certainly see how wrong you are then.

Colin W, Abroad (27/08/2007 at 06:29)

Antony, please do be quiet child. I have a four degrees, two in computer science, on i electrical engineering and one of which is in pure mathematics which i took in 2006... This was by far the easiest of the four. So where is your argument now?

Joey, Ashton under Lyne, (27/08/2007 at 11:12)

Antony wrote:
Why can't you accept that our generation is just more intelligent, generally, than yours, and for sure, the next generation will be more intelligent than mine.

A lot of people confuse Intelligence with Educated these terms are in most cases mutually exclusive.

Kate A (27/08/2007 at 16:20)

The Catcher, In the Rye

May I point out to you that on the 24/08/2007 at 11:37, you forgot to start a sentance with a capital letter. If you were to do that in a GCSE paper you would not get above a D! Whereas my dad took an O level in English, where he managed to spell English wrong: yet he still got a B. Standards must be slipping!

But so what if our generation can't spell or punctuate. We have computers, that do that for us. If you had it your way we would still be writing with quills.

In addition, the older members of this 'debate' appear to have forgotten what O levels were. Forgive me if I am wrong, but didn't O levels comprised of GCE's and GSE's? One was for brighter students; the other for those 'less able'. Maybe this is why there is such a difference in the results?

P.S In sport world records are broken year in, year out. This doesn't mean, for example, that the 100 metres is getting shorter.

Antony (27/08/2007 at 18:17)

Colin, thanks for your reply. I'm enjoying the way you persist in dumbing down our success; i'm sure you would have appreciated it if people older than you said that your O levels were easy and were almost worthless.

Give the average secondary school leaver of your generation one of our GCSE Maths exams; i doubt they could answer many questions.

Another point, the way you people keep devaluing the GCSEs suggests that you would prefer that nobody passed them, so even more people had no qualifications, so even more people can live off the taxpayer.

Is it any wonder so many people leave school knowing nothing, can't get a job, then have to turn to crime and benefits for the rest of their lives; because people like you suggest that GCSEs are good for nothing.

I don't know what your problem is, but you've got issues if all you can do is criticise the efforts of sixteen year olds. It seems that we can do nothing to please anyone.

Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 05:26)

Interesting point Joey. The point I was making was that students today can only take the exams they are given. Whether the level and quality is sufficient to allow them to compete with othe EU and world countries is debatable.I have been chatting about this subject with leaders of industry on LinkedIn and it seems there is a recent Durham University satudy which has found that the pupils who achieve a/A* passes today are only at the same level as C grade students in the 1980s. This has got to be depressing for the future.

Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 09:01)

Anthony, i took my O levels in the early 80s, and yes the same exams in the 70s were harder then the ones I sat. Thats not under question. The point is that they have become easier ever since the Tory government stopped grading students based against their peers in 1984 and just on the amount of facts they could learn. This has been known for decades so why are you surprised?

Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 09:03)

You can argue all you want. The evidence is there that the range of knowledge needed to pass maths today is a fraction of that needs in the 60s, 70s or 80s. You have no argument as this is been widely proven by university studies, TV shows and common sense

Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 09:06)

Katie, slightly wrong im afraid. GCEs and CSEs were totally different. CSEs were aimed at students who were thought not to be good enough to get a C grade (approx 40%) or higher pass at GCE level. GCSEs were brought in in the early 80s as a combination of GCEs and CSEs as a replacement for both. The current examinations are based on GCSEs not GCEs or CSEs

Colin W, Abroad (28/08/2007 at 09:09)

Antony, the criticism is not against todays students but against the system and its insistence that the ever increasing percentage of top grade students is a justification for a flawed system. In the 'good old days' students were graded against all other students who sat the same exam in the same year... thereby showing how an individual faired against everyone else. So a top grade in this system, indicated their ability against everyone else. If the exam was particularly hard or easy in any given year then the best students would still, ideally, fair better than others with lesser ability. How much fairer do you want it?

()

Report This

Education