What is causing the dire rates of success of GCSE resit?
Since 2015, students who do not attain the UK government basic standard of Level 4 in maths and English have to resit these subjects. But stats show that there’s an alarming 79% and 83% failure rate (English and Maths respectively).
Jilly Duffy, Head of the OCR exam board has described it as a “resit crisis”.
But why is this?
Here are a few things I have observed in some schools which could be attributed to the high rate of GCSE resit failure.
- Lack of adequate timetabling. Some students only get 1 hour a week of taught instruction in the resit subject. Say a student got a Grade 2 in their first attempt, the expectation that they’d jump two grades higher with one hour of teaching is farcical. To compound matters, if a student is unwell that week or has to miss a lesson for personal reasons, they’ve lost their only opportunity for subject teaching that week.
- Poor timing of exam entry. This links to issue number 1. Some students are put forward for resits as early as November. There simply is not enough time to plug the knowledge gaps. January, or even summer would be better options for many pupils.
- Student motivation. If a student does not want to be there or cannot see the value of studying for the subject, no amount of resits will secure their success.
For schools that have achieved success in GCSE resits, please share your experience. I know many in my network would appreciate the guidance. Perhaps together we can begin to fix the problem.