Change is in the Air

GCSEs are going through their biggest overhaul since being introduced in the late 1980s, with new course content and a different form of assessment.

Virtually all subjects – with the exception of English, maths and ICT – have been reviewed and redesigned to make them more accessible, more engaging, and so they contain greater relevance to young people in today’s world.

“The last changes were relatively minimal and took place in 2001, so even that was some time ago,” explained Sara Coldicott, OCR’s head of qualifications development.

“There have been a lot of social and scientific developments since then and the world is constantly changing. There was a feeling that GCSE had become rather predictable and it was time to review them and to make them more relevant for young people.”

It is hoped the changes will help to inspire and motivate the 40 per cent or so of candidates every year who fail to achieve any A* to C grades, many of whom leave school and undertake no further education or training. The revisions have considered what is being taught and how teachers are delivering the material.

English, maths and ICT have been left out of the current reforms because of the introduction of functional skills in 2010, and the need to carry out a comprehensive trial of the new requirements in the meantime. Once these have been introduced, students will be unable to achieve a grade C or higher at GCSE in these three subjects without passing the functional skills element.

At the same time, a number of new subjects are being introduced at GCSE by the exam boards. For example, OCR has created ancient history and law in response to demand from schools who wanted pupils to gain a grounding in these areas earlier on in their school lives, in the hope that they will be better prepared for A level and beyond.

Since Spring 2008, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has been poring over more than 300 different GCSEs being offered by all the examining boards.

Now the courses have been finalised and in October 2008, details of the new GCSEs will be sent out to schools in preparation for first teaching in September 2009.

A decision was taken not to return to linear assessment, where subjects are tested by examination at the end of two years of study, because this does not reflect real life.

The thinking was that most young people will be unlikely to find themselves in a situation in their working life where they will not have a second chance to get something right through practice and improving their skills.