Are we in a Maths and English ‘resit crisis’? | UK News

For almost a quarter of pupils taking Maths and English GCSEs this year, it wasn’t their first rodeo. Some 23.4% of pupils taking those exams were aged 17 and older – an all-time high.

While some of those would have been mature students sitting them for the first time, most would have been school- or college-age pupils taking resits after failing them when they were 16.

In England, if a pupil doesn’t get a passing grade in GCSE Maths and English the first time around, they need to keep studying for them and retaking the exams alongside doing their next course, such as A-levels or T-levels.

These resits are held twice a year, in June and November.

Pupils resitting are far less likely to pass than those sitting the exams for the first time. This year in England, only 20.9% of English entries and 17.1% of Maths entries for pupils aged 17 or older achieved a passing grade – grade 4 – or higher.

One of those was James Bonning from Birmingham, who has just achieved a grade 4 in his Maths GCSE on his third try.

He told News he needed to pass his exam to get his Level 2 Electrical Training qualification.

“It’s just a relief,” he said. “[If I didn’t pass] I wouldn’t be able to go on a Level 2, and then progress to Level 3 after it.

“[Passing] opens loads of doors, whether it’s electrician or any other trade.”

Results day has brought good news for James – but Bethany Clarke, who’s studying at the same college, has now found out she’ll have to retake her exam again.

Bethany told News that she found the exams challenging: “The non-calculator, it’s definitely harder because obviously you don’t have the calculator… but even with the calculator papers it’s definitely hard, especially the last paper this year.”

But she is keeping a positive attitude.

“Honestly, I feel quite happy,” she said. “I didn’t get a grade 4, but I was six marks off, so I’m really happy about that.”

Educationalists are sounding the alarm about this.

Jill Duffy, chief executive of the exam board OCR, has said these pupils end up getting stuck in a years-long cycle of resits – and that we’re now seeing a “resit crisis”.

“We’ve seen the number of 17-year-olds taking Maths increased by 8% – but 18-year-olds, this year we’re seeing that number increased by almost 20%,” Ms Duffy told Radio 4’s World at One.

“So, they are re-sitting, and they’re entering this dispiriting, if you like, cycle of resits.”

Not only is it potentially demoralising for pupils to have to sit and fail exams multiple times, but according to Catherine Sezen from the Association of Colleges, it also puts a strain on colleges, who end up having to facilitate these resits.

“If you think there are 3,400 secondary schools, but there are only around 190 colleges that are doing most of this work, that’s where the students go. So, the logistics for the college are completely overwhelming,” Ms Sezen told News.

“It’s quite overwhelming in terms of the proportion of English and Maths that you’re delivering. If you go into a college, walk down corridors and that’s what people are doing.

“Those are important skills, but it’s time for a rethink.”

Updated guidance from the Department for Education says it is not compulsory for pupils to resit their GCSE maths or English exams, and they should do so only when they – and their school or college – think they are ready. Previously it has been described as a requirement.

We know there is an issue – the data makes this clear. But the question is, why is this happening?

One suggestion is that the GCSE Maths and English curricula are expecting too much from pupils.

In her Radio 4 interview, Ms Duffy said that “on maths specifically, we think the current GCSE is far too big and it includes knowledge that isn’t required”.

“For example, you have to memorise the exact values of trigonometry – and that’s something we’re not even asking A-level students to do,” she said.

For high-achieving pupils in England, Maths is a success story. The country performs well in international league tables for the subject, and more pupils than before are going on to study Maths at A-level.

But Ms Duffy adds: “We also have to expect that at the other end there’s more work that we need to do. It can’t be that we have a third of students who aren’t getting the basic maths skills that they need at 16.”

The problem may also be more deeply rooted, and in many cases may go far further back than GCSE.

Ms Duffy told the that when her exam board looked at the transcripts of pupils who had failed, “what’s really clear is they’re missing out on some of the fundamental Maths and English skills that they should be getting earlier on in their career.

“So we think there’s an awful lot that needs doing in Key Stage 3 [between ages 11 and 14], and even before Key Stage 3, to make sure that they’re getting these fundamental skills so that when they get to doing those GCSEs at 16, we don’t have so many that are then going on to resit.”

Catherine Sezen echoed this, and suggested some pupils are on a path to GCSE failure from as early as primary school.

“If you look at those students who are low achievers at the end of Key Stage 2 [aged 11], about 20% of those students [go on to] achieve a grade 4 at GCSE at 16,” she said. “So, this is really quite embedded – it goes right back to reception and to nursery.

“The government’s target is that 75% of children are ready for school at four or five. What about the other 25%?

“I suppose I think what you’re seeing there is that there are some children who never catch up.”

Ms Sezen added that in general, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds do worse in these exams – and for this cohort in particular, the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021 could be playing a part, too.

“The year 11s this year would have been in that primary-secondary changeover phase during the pandemic,” she said.

“What Covid did was exacerbate disadvantage… if you didn’t have a laptop, if you didn’t have a tablet, if you had parents who were trying to juggle two or three children and perhaps also trying to work from home.”

So, what’s the solution?

In a statement released by OCR, Ms Duffy called for “fundamental reform to Maths and English secondary education – especially at Key Stage 3”.

Ms Sezen believes it could be time to introduce an alternative to the GCSE more tailored towards lower-achieving pupils, which would “ensure success for more young people at 16, for those young people who are not quite ready to reach that threshold.

“We have to understand that there are some young people who will never reach that threshold… You need to have appropriate qualifications for the people you’ve got sitting in front of you to make sure that they can look at doing basic skills well. And you can continue to build those skills from 16 to 18 if you need to.”

She added that the exam system should allow pupils to build up credits, rather than the current all-or-nothing approach.

“I also think we need to look at what countries are doing across the world,” she added. “We need to build on evidence and research of what works, because quite clearly what we’ve got at the moment doesn’t.”

Additional reporting by Hazel Shearing and Christopher Steers