[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-206833-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":74,"doc-detail-206833-en":124},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":67,"head_meta":69,"extra_data":71,"updated_unix":73},105,"en","school-improvement-or-the-equivalent","School Improvement - or the ‘Equivalent’","","A report argues that vocational qualifications at GCSE level have become shaped by government attainment targets rather than genuinely improving learning for students under 16. It explains how rising GCSE results and probationary PSA benchmarks can mask a widening achievement gap tied to deprivation, free school meals, and prior test outcomes. The analysis highlights distortions within the examination and coursework system, resource targeting of borderline pupils, and curriculum/exam difficulty concerns that allow grade inflation without increased student 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is the report’s central claim about vocational qualifications at GCSE level?","Question",{"text":56,"@type":57},"It argues that vocational learning is being driven by attainment targets and equivalence incentives rather than providing suitable education for pupils below 16.","Answer",{"name":59,"@type":54,"acceptedAnswer":60},"Why does the report emphasize an achievement gap between different groups of pupils?",{"text":61,"@type":57},"It links lower exam performance to entitlement to free school meals and describes how pupils from more deprived backgrounds are disproportionately affected by measures aimed at boosting results.",{"name":63,"@type":54,"acceptedAnswer":64},"How does the report say GCSE results are being improved?",{"text":65,"@type":57},"It describes distortions in coursework and exam practices, grade inflation concerns, and strategies such as concentrating teaching time and resources on C/D borderline pupils to secure A*-C outcomes.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":68,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":40,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":70,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":72,"site_id":7},206833,1788596250,{"code":4,"msg":75,"data":76},"success",[77,81,85,88,93,98,103,108,113,116,120],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":78,"show_sort_weight":79,"slug":80},"Story & 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does not seek to undermine the value of vocational qualifications: on the contrary, it intends to assert that such learning is too advanced to be suitable for pupils below the age of 16.  \nTrading in futures  \nEver-rising GCSE grades are required to support government claims that school standards are improving. The impetus therefore, for year-on-year rises in GCSE performance is very strong, with Public Service Agreements (PSAs) set regularly to determine the specifics of how much improvement must be made. The latest PSA target stipulates that in all schools at least 30 percent of pupils must achieve a minimum five A*-C GCSEs or equivalent including maths and English by 2011, and that the overall proportion of pupils achieve 5 A*-C GCSEs or equivalent including maths and English increase to 53 per cent.1  \nThe main problem which New Labour education policy has so far not succeeded in getting to grips with is the achievement gap between better and worse-off pupils. As such, there is a strong relationship between lower national test and exam performance, and entitlement to free school meals (the central poverty indicator used in education, based on parents’ income.) This relationship means that pupils from more deprived backgrounds are disproportionately hampering government targets. Accordingly, lower-income pupils are disproportionately exposed to the New Labour government’s measures to bolster exam results.  \nThe focus of this report is on one such result-bolstering measure: the vocational course offered at GCSE level, Key Stage 4. This measure which has sprung up on account of the relationship between government GCSE targets and an equivalence system in which vocational qualifications potentially accrue GCSE grades in the league tables. In principle this system of equivalence is a positive for pupils in that it broadens their opportunities by offering them more options; in principle it is also a positive for vocational qualifications in that it puts them on a par with academic ones. In practice, however, neither of these positives is being achieved. Instead the equivalence system in GCSE league tables is being utilised as a way to reach academic targets sinking vocational education and skills further and further into second-class status in the process.  \nHow are GCSE results being improved?  \nGCSE results are taken as such a crucial measure of standards in schooling because, at least in theory, they reflect the quality of the education system at both primary and secondary level. Higher investment in schools under New Labour, a much greater prioritisation of education politically and fiscally and an increase in the number and pay of teachers should all be manifest in the results as school conditions improve. However, distortions within the examination regime  \n1 Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances, August 2008  \nmean that it has become difficult to calculate how much quantifiable improvement reflects genuine improvement and how much reflects artificial gains in the results.  \nAt GCSE level, distortions have taken a multitude of forms, from coursework cheating through plagiarism to coursework cheating in which teachers have essentially collaborated with pupils,(for example the Times Education Supplement’s Warwick Mansell describes as using‘writing frames’) .2 The above board measures which have boosted results but not learning have ranged from a focus on exam performance throughout the course leading to counter-intuitively low pass marks: for example, as again Mansell noted in his 2007 book Education by Numbers, a 2005 AQA Business Studies GCSE paper in 2005 required only 47 per cent to gain an A* .3 In line with this there is the often-cited argument that both the GCSE curriculum and the exams themselves have become less challenging. Robert Coe, of ","cbCairNykNFcQ928","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairNykNFcQ928","pdf",204589,"English","# Trading in futures\n## Achievement gap and equivalence incentives\n## How are GCSE results being improved?\n## Distortions within the examination regime\n## Targeting borderline pupils","[{\"question\":\"What is the report’s central claim about vocational qualifications at GCSE level?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that vocational learning is being driven by attainment targets and equivalence incentives rather than providing suitable education for pupils below 16.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the report emphasize an achievement gap between different groups of pupils?\",\"answer\":\"It links lower exam performance to entitlement to free school meals and describes how pupils from more deprived backgrounds are disproportionately affected by measures aimed at boosting results.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the report say GCSE results are being improved?\",\"answer\":\"It describes distortions in coursework and exam practices, grade inflation concerns, and strategies such as concentrating teaching time and resources on C/D borderline pupils to secure A*-C outcomes.\"}]","School Improvement - or the ‘Equivalent’ | PDF",48]