Commenting on the publication of provisional secondary
school performance tables in England, Geoff Barton, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“Today’s school performance tables show us that 35.6% of
pupils – more than 190,000 young
people – fell short of achieving at least a Grade 4
‘standard pass’ in GCSE English and maths at the end of 12 years
of schooling 1. Every year this ‘forgotten third’
is a feature of our exam system not by accident but because
it is baked in by the mechanism used to distribute grades. We
cannot continue to accept that one-third of pupils must ‘fail’ in
order that two-thirds succeed.
“The government has raised the bar another notch by describing a
Grade 5 as a ‘strong pass’. Well over half of young people – 57%
this year – do not attain this benchmark in GCSE English and
maths despite all the effort they have put into their studies. It
is a measure designed to raise standards but in fact risks
leaving students feeling demoralised even though they have done
really well. And it does not make sense in any case because the
distribution of grades is roughly similar from one year to the
next wherever the bar is set.
“ASCL’s Commission of Inquiry into
the Forgotten Third has recommended a solution – a
Passport in English, and in time maths, taken by pupils at the
point of readiness between the ages of 15 and 19. We believe this
would provide a viable alternative to the annual ritual of
consigning large numbers of young people to a sense of failure.
Our policy-making body, ASCL Council, last week adopted the
recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry in full.
“The government would serve the best interests of young people
better by focusing on this issue rather than flogging its
obsession with the English Baccalaureate measure which has this
year crept up to an entry rate of 40%. This is still a long way
short of its target of 75% studying the EBacc subject combination
at GCSE by 2022, and 90% by 2025. This target is unachievable
because there are simply not enough language teachers in the
system to fulfil that subject element of the EBacc and we note
this is the most commonly missing element. While we fully support
an academically rigorous curriculum, the EBacc combination is not
necessarily the right choice for virtually every student and it
should be consigned to history.”
1 See Table 2 figures for all state-funded
schools. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-4-performance-2019-provisional
