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Question: what exactly would be the problem with a massive increase in grade 4 passes in English and Maths GCSE? How many of the careers that those students now had access to would A) demand no further qualifications B) actually use skills that only grade 4 passes provide?
@SMCommission has called for employers to only require qualifications that are actually relevant. Too much of our system is about filtering and ranking students - letting those with all the social and cultural capital rise to the top.
We need to recognise that 2020 has drawn back the curtain on a system that is structurally faulty. Exams can provide an excellent testing ground; academic rigour is good; but high stakes distort the educational value.
Poor students do worse in exams. Not every individual; but statistically, in every type of school, and every ofsted category, the gap is the same. So if your school has more poor students, you are vulnerable.
And if you are vulnerable, rather than teaching the content well, the pressure becomes greater and greater to teach to the test.
But of course, if your students are poor, in many cases they already have a vocab deficit, lack confidence, and distrust education on the (valid) evidence of the experience of their parents and peers
If you teach to the test, you deny your students the chance to fully understand. And for students experiencing the alienation described, this means the exam starts to look like a meaningless set of hoops to jump through.
Which feeds right back in to the cycle of disengagement.
