This evening has been one of the most frustrating I’ve had in a long time. I’ve been distracted and I can feel my blood pressure rising; today was MathsConf6 and from my twitter timeline it looks like a great time was had by all that attended – that is what the events should be about. It’s fabulous that so many teachers are giving up their own time to attend events like this. They are taking time out to develop their subject knowledge and build both formal and informal professional networks.

That isn’t what is frustrating me though… I see amazing teachers taking steps to put back the professionalism into teaching that is slowly being eroded by government policy and then I see the fact that the message isn’t getting through to people at the coalface. I know it is an almost impossible task given that education is bombarded with speeches, promises and soundbites from politicians through the media before some of what they say comes to fruition through a formal ratification process in Parliament.

Part of today’s event included the three exam boards and even when told information from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, there still appears to be some confusion about some of the changes. Let me be clear: I wasn’t there so cannot confirm or deny what was said and maybe when I see tweets with incorrect information on I should learn to just ignore it … I can’t do it! You know how much I try to keep my gob shut … I just can’t do it! The below was just one of its type that inferred that the information they’d heard was as follows:

If you get this far and stop reading – THE ABOVE IS NOT THE CASE … read on!!

Before you have a go – I know that Progress 8 is supposed to get rid of a “gold standard” type grade but the fact is – whether you believe me or not – the grade 5 IS going to be a key accountability measure from 2017. (DON’T BELIEVE ME? Check out page 7 on this document). There are no two years of grace in terms of students achieving this “threshold” for us in secondary schools. The “good pass” is not going to change – it has already been set at a 5. Be under no illusions that it is anything else, also note that just because the below mentions “currently a grade C, grade  when new GCSEs” etc in the same sentence it is not saying that a 5 = C.

What is happening is that the conditions of funding post 16 that require students who are on a D today to do a GCSE resit won’t apply where the student has achieved a “4” instead of a 5 for a period of 2 years. As to what happens after this time period … who knows? 

This does not mean that students or parents won’t want to resit, what it means is that FE institutions will get funding for students that have a 4 whilst not requiring them to be resitting to get a 5 for a period of two years. 

Let me reiterate – This relaxation of the resit requirement DOES NOT define what is a “good” pass – the government will say that they have provided their definition with their “Ofqual postcard” showing the below, but in my opinion what is defined as a “good pass” will in all honesty be driven by employers and universities when they get their head around the changes.

I’d like to think that I know my sh!t – I’ve been following all these changes to GCSEs very closely – I read everything I find, I have chased information, been a pain in the ar5e to both the DFE and Ofqual and it has turned into an obsession … I find it very frustrating that people still don’t get it.

So for clarity – it would appear that the government doesn’t seems to be able to get the right message to the right people – I’m writing a blog post that I’ll get posted tomorrow with the intention of using it to start collecting FAQs about the new GCSE and accountability, resits etc along with links to other relevant blog posts and government documents. The aim is to keep it updated as changes are announced going forward to avoid any confusion.

I hope this will be useful to other people.