Having nine GCSE grades “serves no useful educational purpose and reduces grade reliability”, the leader of the country’s biggest multi-academy trust has said in his trust’s response to the curriculum and assessment review.
Sir Jon Coles, CEO of United Learning, said the review of the curriculum, led by Professor Becky Francis, should focus on improving the validity of assessment while “reducing the pressures on reliability”.
The trust’s submission to the review, written by Sir Jon, said the system should look to improve the validity of GCSEs and A levels by “making assessments as appropriate to the subject as possible”.
He said there was scope for summative assessments to assess more “validly important skills”, such as extended writing, practical science and speaking.
The submission also questions the current grading system at GCSE.
‘No useful educational purpose’
“Overall, having nine GCSE grades serves no useful educational purpose and reduces grade reliability,” United Learning’s response to the review states.
There have been calls for major changes to the accountability and assessment system from across the sector in response to the review’s call for evidence.
The NAHT school leaders’ union said the multiplication tables check, phonics screening check and key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling tests should all be “scrapped”.
It also warned that the national curriculum and qualification specifications are overcrowded and should be streamlined.
The Association of School and College Leaders has called for GCSE exams to be spread over two years.
Unions have also called for the scrapping of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure.
The United Learning submission to the curriculum review says that, in its recommendations, the review could “reasonably set an objective that parents should be able to compare the performance of schools across any measure they choose”.
It lists that, for example, parents would then be able to look at how well children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) achieve in a given subject at a school.
“This would mean that government could stop promoting the EBacc as a preferred measure - though it would still be accessible to parents,” the response adds.
Other concerns outlined include other subjects being squeezed out in Year 6 because of a focus on English and maths, and GCSE-style question technique becoming central to key stage 3 - “sometimes at the expense of real subject understanding”.
Alternative English and maths qualifications
Several people in the sector have raised the idea of alternative English and maths qualifications - particularly for those who fail to achieve a grade 4 pass at GCSE in either and get stuck in a cycle of retakes.
United Learning agreed a “mastery-style assessment” with a pass or fail for core maths and English skills would be valuable.
The response adds that there should be more focus on “stage not age” for children who are unable to achieve age-related expectations.
Sir Jon also said GCSE courses with exams taken at 16 are not effective at supporting or recognising the progression of young people with SEND when their achievement falls outside of the top 80 per cent of the cohort.
Instead, the curriculum should be more concerned with making better provision and setting system-wide expectations for those who have not passed a given hurdle at the expected age.
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