The Daily Telegraph - 23.08.2019

Top marks rising despite ‘tougher’ exams

By Camilla Turner EDUCATION EDITOR
and Ashley Kirk

TOP grades are on the rise despite the
new “tougher” GCSE exams, with stu-
dents able to pass some exams after an-
swering just 18 per cent of the questions
correctly.
This year, 20.7 per cent of all stu-
dents were given grades 7, 8 or 9, which
is equivalent to A or A*, making it the
highest proportion since 2015. In 2002,

when the Joint Council for Qualifica-

tions’ records began, 16.2 per cent were

graded A or A*. This rose to 20.3 per

cent by 2016, the year before the re-

formed GCSEs were introduced.

To prevent students from being pe-

nalised for taking the new, harder ex-

ams, Ofqual fixes the proportions of

each grade to make them roughly the

same as last year, through a process

they call “comparable outcomes”.

However, experts have pointed out

that artificially lowering the pass marks

to ensure consistency between differ-

ent cohorts would create the illusion

that students were doing better than

they actually were.

Prof Alan Smithers, the director of

Buckingham University’s centre for

Harder GCSE tests mean

some students could pass

after answering just 18 per

cent of questions correctly

News

Boys at Bolton

School, Greater

Manchester,

celebrate receiving

their GCSE results

today

JAMES SPEAKMAN/MERCURY PRESS

My way of teaching proves that

high standards and discipline work

F

or the students, teachers and

parents at Michaela, the free

school in Wembley I established

five years ago, yesterday marked an

important milestone – our first ever

GCSE results.

Our pupils performed brilliantly.

Half received Grade 7 or better in at

least five subjects. Eighteen per cent of

the results were awarded Grade 9 (the

equivalent of a high A*), compared

with a national average of 4.5 per cent.

It was wonderful to share in their

excitement and pride. I am grateful to

the parents who took a chance on

Michaela in its infancy; it’s an honour

to repay their trust by guiding their

children and instilling in them a sense

of ambition and a love of learning.

Yet some were rooting for us to fail.

Michaela opened in 2014, after years of

opposition from teachers’ unions and

others who disapproved of our

unapologetically traditional approach,

and of free schools in general.

We instil a respect for authority and

unashamedly champion a knowledge-

based curriculum. Some characterise

this as mere rote-learning that strips

pupils of their ingenuity but, on the

contrary, it involves analysis and

exploration and promotes creativity,

memory and independent thinking.

Far too many of us wrongly accept

bullying and low-level disruption as

accepted facts of life. At Michaela, we

prize discipline and high standards

• both are vital to children’s welfare.
  Pupils know they can put their hand
  up in class without being bullied for
  being “too clever”, and know their
  peers will delight in their success.
  They are courteous to one another
  and to strangers. Yesterday, one of our
  GCSE students received straight Grade
  9s. But what struck me most was her
  friends’ absolute, unalloyed delight.
  I am proudest not of the results but of
  the inspiring young adults they have
  become. Perhaps now we can finally
  stop dismissing values like honour,
  discipline, decency, respect for
  authority, and good manners as
  somehow “old-fashioned” and simply
  describe them as “what works”.

Katharine Birbalsingh is founder and

head of Michaela Community School

GCSE grades four times national

average at UK’s strictest school

By Helena Horton

BRITAIN’S strictest school has re-
ceived its first ever GCSE results since
opening five years ago – and they are
four times the national average.
At Michaela Community School in
Brent, North London, 18 per cent of ex-
ams were graded a 9, compared with
4.5 per cent nationwide.
In total, 54 per cent of all exams were
graded a 7-9, the equivalent of an A or
A* under the old system.
Katharine Birbalsingh, the head
teacher, came under criticism in the
past for her “strict” methods at the free
school, which aims to instill a private-
school ethos in state school children
The school has a number of unusual
rules, including silence in the corridor
and a strict “no excuses” policy where
pupils are given detention for coming

to school one minute late. Pupils are

also penalised for failing to complete

homework, untidy work, not having

the correct stationery, tutting, rolling

their eyes, and for “persistently turn-

ing round in class”.

Its policy is based on “tough love”,

and the school rules state: “We expect

every pupil to move swiftly and in sin-

gle-file lines between lessons, so that

children are hardly ever late.

“We expect every pupil to greet

teachers and guests with eye contact

and a polite, cheerful, ‘Morning, Sir!’ or

‘Afternoon, Miss!’

“If a school is too permissive, allow-

ing too many exceptions, it risks creat-

ing helplessness, selfishness or

dependence in its pupils rather than

responsibility, consideration and

agency. If a school reduces its stand-

ards for poorer pupils because of their

poverty or difficult home life, it does

them a disservice; frankly, it doesn’t

believe in them enough.”

Ms Birbalsingh named the school af-

ter her former colleague Michaela

Emanus, who died of cancer in 2011.

She said: “Michaela was my col-

league for many years. She believed in

rigour, old-fashioned values, in kids

being allowed to be kids and in adults

leading the way. Sadly she died of can-

cer in 2011. She would have been so

proud of our school and what we have

achieved.”

The head teacher posted a video on

Twitter of herself celebrating with par-

ents, writing: “Nothing nicer than par-

ents saying, ‘We trusted you and you

did it!’ Together, I say, we did it

together!”

Editorial Comment: Page 19

education and employment, said: “Of-

qual was charged by the Government

to deal with rampant grade inflation.

They came up with comparable out-

comes, a statistical way of stopping it.

“Now the exams have been made

tougher and Ofqual is using the same

approach to keep up the grades, when

reasonably they could have expected

them to have fallen. There is an irony

about that.”

This year, students taking the maths

higher-tier GCSE needed just 18 per

cent to pass with AQA, down from 20

per cent last year.

Pupils taking the exam with all three

of the major boards could get almost

half the question wrong and still walk

away with a grade A after the boundary

was set at 57 per cent. Geoff Barton, the

general secretary of the Association of

School and College Leaders, gave an-

other reason for the increase in top

grades.

“That will be attributed to teachers

really getting a sense of the qualifica-

tions under their belts,” he said.

“I think that will be the result of

teachers having had time to teach and

re-teach the specification – in other

words, you get better as a teacher if

things aren’t changing constantly.

“It is having access to resources

which won’t have been there at the be-

ginning – for example, past papers and

examiner reports and so on”.

This year, 837 students were awarded

a clean sweep of seven grade 9s, the

exam watchdog said, compared with

732 last year.

When it comes to the straight-9 stu-

dents, girls continue to dominate, mak-

ing up two thirds (66.4 per cent) of this

year’s high-flyers, up from 62 per cent

of last year’s.

Thousands of students picked up

their GCSE results yesterday. They are

the first group to take the reformed

courses in virtually all subjects.

The new GCSEs were created by Mi-

chael Gove, then the education secre-

tary, in an attempt to inject rigour into

the qualifications and bring the UK in

line with top performing countries.

The reformed exams are designed to

separate the very highest achievers

with A* now split between an 8 and a 9.

‘Ofqual is

using the

same

approach to

keep up the

grades, when

reasonably

they could

have

expected

them to have

fallen’

Girls are closing the gap

on boys in maths and

physics GCSEs.

This year, 15.2 per cent

of girls taking maths

were awarded top grades

of 7, 8 or 9 – A or A* in the

old qualifications – up

from 14.7 per cent last

year – while boys’ scores

fell from 16.8 per cent last

year to 16.6, narrowing

the gap between boys and

girls from 2.1 to 1.

percentage points. In

physics, the gap has

narrowed from 5.7 to 3.

percentage points, with

45.7 per cent of boys and

41.8 per cent of girls

winning top grades.

More than half of GCSE

students were awarded a

grade 9 in some subjects.

Of those taking Chinese,

59 per cent were awarded

the top grade, according

to the Joint Council for

Qualifications (JCQ).

Some 61 per cent of all

Russian entries received

a grade 9, as did 49

per cent of those taking

ancient Greek; 27 per cent

of Arabic entries were

given the top grade, along

with more than a third of

Italian and Polish entries.

Almost twice as many

GCSE entries were

marked “gender neutral”

compared with A-levels.

Some 263 GCSE

candidates were classed

as neither “male” nor

“female” compared to 150

sitting A-levels, JCQ data

shows. It is the first time

the number of GCSEs sat

by “non-binary” students

has been revealed since

OCR and Edexcel changed

the way they classified

gender last year.

Maths and physics

Gender gap narrows

Lang uage lovers

Top-scoring subjects

Non-binary students

First data revealed

Commentary

By Katharine Birbalsingh

The Daily Telegraph Friday 23 August 2019 *** 7

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