In an address to 1,500 school and academy trust leaders, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson last week asked schools to stop focusing solely on exam results. She said the government would not have a ‘tunnel vision’ on academic success, but ‘widen our ambition’ to give students a ‘sense of wellbeing and belonging’. On the surface this seems like a worthy sentiment: it is true that too many schools now simply teach to the test at the cost of a more holistic experience, and the GCSE treadmill means that schools inevitably fixate on getting cohorts of 16-year-olds through the eye of a very narrow scholastic needle.
However, criticising schools for ‘chasing a narrow shade of standards’ is a bit like criticising a dog for bringing a ball back after you have told it to play fetch; schools focus on exam results because the education system tells them to do so. From league tables to Ofsted ratings to measures like Progress 8, schools are judged by their ability to deliver academic results. Exam results have therefore become about assessing for accountability rather than assessing for learning, and Phillipson cannot expect this to change without promising reform first.
It is true that many schools nowadays coach students to answer questions to satisfy specific mark schemes rather than fostering a deeper understanding or appreciation of the subject. Anthony Seldon was right when he wrote that too often, teachers teach Physics GCSE, rather than Physics, and Spanish A-level, rather than Spanish, sacrificing genuine academic and independent learning at the altar of ‘exam technique.’ This obsession with exam preparation has trickled down to KS3 too: for many schools, GCSE English Literature is so content-heavy (students have to be taught a modern text, a Shakespeare play, a 19th century novel, up to 18 poems as well as an unseen component) that they now start teaching it in Year 9, meaning the curriculum is narrowed from an even earlier age.
This anxiety around results clearly affects students too. Phillipson says that ‘A*s alone do not set young people up for a healthy and happy life’, but young people are acutely aware that the marks they get will determine the paths they take, and in the context of an economy and society where opportunities seem to be continually diminishing, the stakes seem painfully high. All sixth forms require you to pass Maths and English GCSE, even if you want to study art or plumbing or childcare; competition for top university places is more intense than ever with the rise in the number of international students. Even entry into more practical, non-academic professions like nursing now requires a degree.
Despite what Jeremy Clarkson may tweet every results day about how he only got a C and two Us, the reality is that I think most students still assume that grades equate to social worth, and we do too little to dissuade them otherwise. The pressure is immense: three-quarters of teachers said they are forced to lay on additional provisions for GCSE pupils due to exam anxiety, and over half say they have been contacted by parents who worry their child isn’t coping or is skipping school as a result of exam worry. In a survey by the children’s commissioner for England, two-thirds of children ranked homework and exams as their greatest cause of stress, while in an OECD ranking of the life satisfaction of 15 year olds, the UK came 69th out of 72 nations. Of those 72 nations, the UK has also suffered the greatest decline since 2015, the year in which Michael Gove’s new GCSE reforms became effective. According to an NEU poll, three quarters of teachers believe the new exams are at least partly responsible for the deterioration in students’ mental health.
It is therefore all well and good Phillipson telling schools that they need to create ‘welcoming, engaging and inclusive spaces for pupils’, but nothing will change unless the goalposts do. Schools can’t be everything for everyone, and Phillipson now needs to crystallise what exactly she sees education for, beyond woolly terms such as ‘belonging’. Any reforms should not be about no exams, but better exams, which will allow us to sustain focus on academic standards without sacrificing educational breadth. For all its flaws, our education system has moved up the international rankings in recent years (pupils in England now rank 11th in the world at Maths – up from 27th in 2009 – and 13thin reading – up from 25th in 2009), but there is still a long way to go: we cannot tell schools to relinquish their focus on exam results when 35 to 40 per cent of pupils still do not pass GCSE Maths and English. We therefore have to find a way to keep increasing standards without making exam results the be-all and end-all, but we cannot expect schools to do this alone.
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