\n<\/p>\n
The requirement that children who fail GCSE maths and English must repeatedly resit the exams is too inflexible and needs to be overhauled, according to Becky Francis, the head of the government\u2019s curriculum review.<\/p>\n
Francis said the full review, ordered by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, would be published \u201cin a few weeks\u201d and supports changes expected in a forthcoming white paper to England\u2019s resits policy that requires pupils who fail to reach a grade 4 in maths and English to keep retaking them while in post-16 schooling.<\/p>\n
Francis, a professor of education at University College London, told a conference of school leaders that those who fail maths and English are being condemned to face \u201cblocks to progress\u201d and repeated discouragement.<\/p>\n
Calling for \u201ca more nuanced, evidence-driven approach at post-16, rather than an inflexible approach to retakes\u201d, Frances highlighted that out of 3,400 17-year-olds awarded a grade 2 in GCSE maths during the summer of 2024, only about 50 achieved a grade 4 in their resits later that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost, both to young people\u2019s morale and to the public purse, must be significant. So we\u2019re making recommendations which we hope will better support more young people to make good progress post-16, and these will be reflected in the forthcoming skills white paper,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
The compulsory resits have been condemned by education experts. Jill Duffy, the former chief executive of the OCR examination board, said the level of resits has turned into a crisis, with the performances revealing that the students lacked \u201cfundamental skills they should have been getting much earlier\u201d at school.<\/p>\n
MPs on the House of Commons\u2019 education select committee have also urged the government to change the policy introduced by the former education secretary Michael Gove.<\/p>\n
Pepe Di\u2019Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: \u201cWhile we fully agree with the importance of supporting students who have struggled with maths and English when they enter 16-19 education, the fact of the matter is that the existing policy of mandatory retakes simply hasn\u2019t worked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of these students continue to fall short of grade 4 at GCSE and this is a grinding experience which erodes their confidence in these vital subjects \u2013 the exact opposite of the policy intention. It is very clear that a new approach is needed and it is pleasing to hear that this is on the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government is expected to publish its post-16 skills white paper early next week, including plans for a new vocational qualification for sixth formers to sit alongside A-levels and T-levels, likely to be known as V-levels.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Francis said: \u201cWe see the need for a third vocational pathway alongside the academic and technical pathways offered by A-levels and T-levels. And of course, a strong offering is especially important to support the large numbers of young people seeking such routes, among whom those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately represented.\u201d<\/p>\n The new V-levels would in effect displace alternative A-level qualifications such as BTecs or other applied general qualifications offered by exam boards.<\/p>\n Di\u2019Iasio said: \u201cThe challenge will be to develop a policy which gives every student the best possible opportunity of a qualification of which they can be proud and provides pathways into higher education, apprenticeships and careers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The requirement that children who fail GCSE maths and English must repeatedly resit the exams is too inflexible and needs to be overhauled, according to Becky Francis, the head of the government\u2019s curriculum review. Francis said the full review, ordered by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, would be published \u201cin a few weeks\u201d and supports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[689,15575,700,488,10167,10169,17106,2935,17105],"class_list":{"0":"post-28872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-chief","9":"tag-compulsory","10":"tag-curriculum","11":"tag-english","12":"tag-gcse","13":"tag-gcses","14":"tag-inflexible","15":"tag-maths","16":"tag-resits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}