'Toughened up' GCSEs suffer biggest fall in grades for 25 years

Andrew Hall of exam board AQA warned teachers are under increasing pressure to make sure students score a C in English and maths, which has caused the changes.

He said: “The accountability system is creating some perverse incentives. In maths there is really clear evidence of multiple entries throughout the year. Students are taking an inordinate amount of exams.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “Abuse of multiple entries is one of the reasons why this Government’s reforms of GCSEs are so badly needed.

“Schools should not be entering children for exams early, and then for re-sits, or other exams in the same subject. It is not good for pupils and should not happen.

“Making more use of end-of-course exams for GCSEs will help stop schools ‘gaming’ the system in this way. We also plan to change the way the performance tables are calculated to give schools more credit for each extra grade a pupil achieves. This will encourage schools to enter pupils for GCSEs at the end of Year 11 when pupils are most likely to gain their best grade.

“And Ofsted now challenge the use of inappropriate early and multiple entry to GCSE exams during inspections. We are considering further action to discourage this practice.”

The trend is most striking in maths where 22 per cent of exams were taken by 15 year olds. But their performance is significantly lower than that of 16 year olds.

Mr Hall added: “I find it hard to say it’s good for the education of young people. I think it’s not. 10,000 students took their maths GCSE four times. This is not anecdotal, this is evidence. There are two poor souls who took maths GCSE eight times. These are seriously expensive costs for the economy and it is doing serious damage to maths education in the UK.”

He added: “If they get the C grade do they carry on and develop to their full potential? Or is the system saying we will get them to the C and then stop and the focus goes elsewhere…When I talk to teachers about this it’s pretty clear they are feeling an increasing pressure of the accountability measure on English and maths.”

Mark Dawe of the OCR exam board said: “Early entry does not benefit students. These qualifications were designed for 16 year olds. There is a ten per cent difference in pass rates between 15 and 16 year olds. It’s not good for the students. They should be left to learn for those two years.”

Stephen Twigg, shadow education secretary said: “There has been a big increase in the number of young people taking two or more exams in the same subject. This is bad for standards, school budgets and learning. Michael Gove needs to get a grip on the multiple entry exam practice that is distorting standards.”

Today’s results also show that just 63.6 per cent of English exams were graded A* to C, compared with 64.1 per cent last year. The fall in top grades was also put down to younger students taking the exam before they are ready.

More students are taking biology, chemistry and physics as separate subjects but results dropped after tough new exam papers were introduced.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said today’s results are “turbulent.” He said schools try to do anything they can to ensure students get the vital C grade. He added: “I am not justifying double entry; I am understanding it. It is the accountability system that is driving it. The pressure on young people to get a C is absolutely immense.”

Gerard Kelly, editor of the Times Educational Supplement said: “The government has criticised schools for entering pupils early for exams or having them sit multiple exams in the same subject. But schools are under tremendous pressure to deliver, so it is no surprise that they are taking out insurance.

“It cannot be good for students to have to sit all those extra exams, but it is hard to blame schools when the consequences of failure are so severe.”