Ofsted went to see, see, see...

I went in to school the other day to do various things, but partly to look at our GCSE results. I was amazed at some of our results, for various reasons.

Last Saturday a popular broadsheet had an article quoting the headmaster of the school with the best A Level results in England. You won't be surprised to hear that he is head of a private school, but may be surprised to hear that around half of his school's A Level candidates achieved an A*. This is obviously the mark of some excellent teaching and some excellent learners, but when you compare the percentages of those in private and state education of how many candidates gain A* grades, the difference is pretty stark:

Private: 19% achieve an A* grade
State: 8% achieve an A* grade

Now don't be fooled by the myth that all private school students are more intelligent than state school students because that is simply not true, and at A Level class sizes are about the same. The teachers in state education are equally as qualified and talented, in some cases more so than their private counterparts, and the myth that private schools pay more than state schools should also be dispelled, because it's simply not true.

So why do private school candidates get consistently higher grades?

I think that there are a few reasons:

1. The fact that parents are forking out thousands of pounds to send their child to school, when a free option is available to them means that they are supportive of their child's education. Although you could argue that the fact that a state school pupil has stayed on to study A Levels rather than contribute to the household earnings would also show parental support for their child's education.
2. The work ethic at private schools is higher and those who don't toe the line get removed with a"we don't need your fees, go and find someone who does" attitude. This is true, private schools  can just get rid of a disruptive pupil almost on a whim, whereas any state school teacher will tell you the chain of paperwork to do the same thing in state education is growing ever longer. But at A Level the children have chosen their subject and presumably want to take them, so disruption should be at a minimum you'd suppose.
3. This is the reason the headteacher in the article states, and I think the most important and significant one: State schools are fixated on the C grade, regarding that as a pass and anything higher being a bonus. Teachers are being told by the government (Ofsted) via their senior management to ensure that as many as possible gain a C grade. All this does is leave those who are capable of gaining A*, A or B grades to fend for themselves. There is a large amount of truth in this at both A Level, and actually more so at GCSE.

Since I saw our school's results the other day and recalled the newspaper article I can't seem to shake this song out of my head:

Ofsted went to see, see, see...
A school's GCSE, E, Es...
But all that it could see, see, see...
Was the pupils with a C. C, C.

We gained a massive amount of C grades for our school this summer, with almost all students achieving 5 A*- C grades (not including English and Maths). It was a rise over over 20% on the previous year. How did we manage? I'll tell you:

1. The teaching stayed roughly the same.
2. Staff were "forced" (you could refuse but felt it was probably more trouble than it was worth to do so) to teach extra lessons after school, although they weren't compulsory for the students so only a handfull turned up in many cases, and they tended to be the ones who didn;t really need to.
3. We entered lots of our "less academic" students for BTECs and Diplomas - this is the key. Those who would previously have got one or no GCSEs above C grade now found themselves with the "equivalent" of 8 by taking 2 BTECs. It's known in the trade as "playing the game", and are essentially what makes our new academies (previously struggling schools on the whole) appear to be making progress.

Now, I'm not knocking the BTEC qualification or the schools who offer it, because not everyone is academically minded and they need to have something to show for their time at school, but are they really worth 4 GCSEs? The BTEC qualifications generally no exams but are coursework based and are assessed in schools, although the marks are verified by external examiners. Students write this coursework under the supervision of their teacher, but exams can't be taken under the same supervision. This means that in coursework based qualifications, students have to opportunity to improve their grade after a quick chat with their teacher, something that also can't be done in an exam. We have a number of students who have done just this and therefore pushed the overall percentage up significantly.

When people ask me nowadays whether exams have got easier, my reply is always this:

"At the top end no because it's still just as tough to get the top grades, but a C grade has certainly become easier to achieve."

This is purely a result of these "new" qualifications, but it is deceptive and ultimately devalues the C grade someone got in a GCSE exam since it appears relatively easy to achieve an "Ofsted pass" or a C grade equivalent in a BTEC.

Ultimately it's all a political game and a system designed to please Ofsted/the government, which is a bit sad really.