Repeat After ‘E’: the treadmill of post-16 GCSE maths and English retakes

Today will not be a happy occasion for the typical 17 year old re-taking GCSE maths and/or English. The government now requires them to continue studying these subjects if they did not achieve a grade C at age 16 and many are entered for these qualifications again after just a year of additional study. For [...]

By |2016-12-07T12:55:12+00:0025th August 2016|Exams and assessment, Post-16 provision|

A-Level results day 2016: Entries and grades in the new ‘decoupled’ AS-Levels

This year’s AS-Level results include the first set of decoupled subjects, which won't count towards English students' final A-Level grades next year. Declines in UK entry numbers in the decoupled subjects range from 11% (business studies) to 33% (art and design). Why not enter for AS-Level? Examination fees cost money, and schools’ post-16 budgets are already stretched from funding reforms which have [...]

By |2017-10-23T12:51:31+01:0018th August 2016|Exams and assessment, Post-16 provision|

A-Level results day 2016: Did a good summer for Welsh football herald a bad summer for Welsh boys’ results?

A-Level examination sittings, which stretch from mid-May through to the end of June, often overlap with an international football tournament. Unfortunately, football lovers, who are more likely to be boys than girls, can find this a distraction from their revision schedule. Economists at the University of Bristol have noticed how this has damaged English boys [...]

By |2017-10-23T12:51:41+01:0018th August 2016|Exams and assessment, Post-16 provision|

Education Datalab appoints Partnerships and Communications Officer

I am very pleased to have joined the team at Education Datalab as Partnerships and Communications Officer. As well as assisting the research team with the smooth running of our projects, I will be focused on disseminating our research findings and associated policy recommendations to wider audiences in the education field. As well as policy [...]

By |2016-08-04T09:53:18+01:004th August 2016|News|

Changing the subject: why pushing pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to take more academic subjects may not be such a bad thing

Today, Sutton Trust published our report on the 300 secondary schools who transformed their curriculum between 2010 and 2013 in response to government policy, achieving a rise in the proportion of pupils entering the EBacc from 8% to 48%. Understanding the experiences of pupils in these schools gives us a little window on what might [...]

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