GCSE: Assessment of Pupils (Hansard, 17 December 1990)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, it is the Government's policy that the GCSE should be the main means of assessment for 16 year-olds at the end of key stage 4 of the national curriculum. We await advice from the School Examinations and Assessment Council on aspects of the adjustments which will be necessary to enable the GCSE to assess effectively against national curriculum requirements.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that this late change will lead to a certain amount of confusion? We were told when the Education Reform Bill was going through the House that the GCSE would be the main examination for assessing pupils at that stage. Can all the subjects be assessed, and will the change of grades not cause difficulty and confusion for a great many people?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the GCSE will continue to be the main assessment at the age of 16 at the end of key stage 4 of the national curriculum. The two subjects where difficulties appear to have arisen are science and mathematics. The School Examinations and Assessment Council is about to advise the Government. There will therefore be some modification but no change in the system. The assessment will still be mainly the GCSE.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, will not the A to G levels for the national curriculum be different?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, it would not be appropriate for me to go into the detail of how the Government will act on the advice from SEAC. What can be said is that there is some scope in those two subjects for some merging of the attainment targets to fit in with the GCSE grades. As to whether the GCSE grades will necessarily change, I suspect not. It will be a merging of the 17 attainment targets in science and possibly the attainment targets in mathematics.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, is the Minister sure that the grades are not being changed? We are under the impression that a decision has already been made to change from the A to G grades, which have been well established for some time, to a new scale going from 1 to 10. Can she say whether that decision has been made?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the national curriculum will be graded from 1 to 10. The attainment targets for each subject—17 in science and 11 in mathematics—present a difficulty when they are to be dovetailed into the GCSE examinations. There will have to be a response to that. The Government are awaiting advice from SEAC. When they receive it they will bring forward their modifications.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, will the Minister answer my question? Have the grades been changed or not? We are under the impression that they have been changed. Can she give us some indication as to how the 40 to 45 attainment targets that are tied into the new national curriculum can possibly be assessed by the GCSE? Does she not agree that it is a great mistake to meddle around with the GCSE and alter what has been a rather successful innovation?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Baroness lumps all the attainment targets together and does not take them subject by subject. I said that the two subjects to present difficulties are science and mathematics, where there are too many attainment targets to dovetail neatly into the GCSE. The assessments will be on the scale 1 to 10 but the way in which the particular difficulties of science and mathematics attainment targets are met will be the subject of, first, the advice of SEAC, and, secondly, the Government's response to that advice.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I intervene to seek clarification because I thought I understood the matter until the noble Baroness began to answer our questions. Am I right in thinking that there will be grading 1 to 10? But is it also the case that the original grades A to G will remain and that the two will correspond; or will we from now on simply have grades 1 to 10?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, there will be equivalents of the scales A to G to particular points of the scale 1 to 10 for the national curriculum. However, as the attainment targets have come out, there is a particular difficulty in the number of attainment targets for some subjects. I have already named them —science, general science and mathematics. As to whether we should merge some of those attainment targets—for example, whether we should merge the arithmetical side of mathematics with the non-arithmetical side—we shall have to wait and see. We shall have to wait for the advice of SEAC and then await the Government's response. The GCSE will remain the main examination but the GCSE assessment will be rather more precise and more rigorous than it is at the moment.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, will the examination boards have plenty of time to understand what is going on? Will they have trials and will they be able to come to arrangements with their examiners, and so on?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the examination boards will welcome the fact that the problem is being addressed. What the examination boards would want is what the Government want, which is to see our young people properly tested against precise and 643 rigorous targets. That is what will happen. We have a particular problem in two subjects which is to be addressed.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am sorry to press the noble Baroness, but we do not seem to be getting much further with the answers to the Question. Will we have a clear statement from the Government on exactly what the parameters for testing are, or are we to be fobbed off with this curious rigmarole which the noble Baroness seems to produce from the Dispatch Box?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, there is no intention to fob off anyone on this issue. I thought that I had made the position clear. There are a large number of attainment targets in science, general science and mathematics but they are not entirely compatible with the GCSE examination. SEAC is about to advise the Government. The department will respond to that advice. There will then be a clear statement not only to the House but to those who directly matter—the schools examination boards and the children.

§ Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone
My Lords, how would my noble friend grade the quality of the Opposition questions on her very clear statements?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, on a scale of 1 to 10, I think the score would be three.