Good luck Year 11!

More than 2,200 secondary school pupils took more than 20,000 exams during this summer’s exam season in Brighton & Hove.

Councillor Dan Chapman, chair of the children, young people and skills committee, is a former Longhill High School pupil. He recently visited his old school to chat to teachers and pupils, and to wish good luck to all pupils across the city waiting for their GCSE results on Thursday 23 August.

More information on the changes to GCSEs

Last year a new style of GCSE was rolled out across the country for Maths and English. The new format GCSE has now been extended to almost all subjects taken in the summer exams.

  • A new grade structure runs from 9 to 1, with 9 being the highest grade attainable  (replacing the A to G system)
  • Grade 4 is considered a standard pass and Grade 5 a strong pass
  • The examinations are more demanding  than under the previous format

Despite apparent correlation between the new system and the previous one, the new system is only broadly comparable to the previous one.

A briefing has been produced explaining the changes in more detail.

The situation is complicated by wider changes in the national calculation of GCSE grades. Progress 8 and Attainment 8 are complex processes which will be used by government to benchmark results, calculate standards and measure accountability in schools.

Progress 8 is a longer term calculation of this year’s grades which is not due to be available from the Department For Education until October.

Taken together Progress 8 and Attainment 8 relate to how results will be calculated in the future, in a very different way from before.

Attainment 8

This measures overall attainment for schools at Key Stage 4 across the following eight subjects.

  • English
  • Mathematics
  • Three other English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects (sciences, computer science, geography, history and languages)
  • Three further subjects, which can be from the range of EBacc subjects, or can be any other GCSE or approved academic or vocational qualification

Progress 8

This measures how schools are performing by looking at how pupils progress from the end of primary school to the end of Year 11 in the above eight subjects.