What would happen / would media reaction be if next year A Level / GCSE pass rates WENT DOWN?

prretty posh girls weeping on each others' shoulders

Kids are getting stupider, more interested in video games/knifing each other/knocking each other up. Our education system which was once the envy of the world is going to the dogs. Pretty posh girls weeping on each others' shoulders and it's all Gordon Brown's fault. Doesn't take an enormous amount of imagination really.

Brown fails our children

http://www.indiadaily.org/images/girls_oushine_boys_in_class_xii_cbse_results.jpg

Some students celebrate having bucked the trend of failure.

if my sis's results are anything to go by, nothing to fear from such headlines.

(woo! i am happy bunny today!!)

We'll soon find out.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/07/a-level-and-gcse-exam-grades-will-not-be-fiddled-ofqual

Yeah, next Thursday's gonna be quite a day.

My Big Educational Plan for Abolishing All this Nonsense (obviously never going to be implemented):

ABOLISH GRADES COMPLETELY. Give everyone their *percentage mark* for each of the A/GCSE level subjects they took, just like they do (or did) for every non-public exam in school up to the point when it gets all serious. Result, complete mathematical transparency, employers, colleges and universities can breathe a hearty sigh of relief safe in the knowledge that no matter how much the government fannies around with the education system, they know to give study places or jobs to the people with top %s if aptitude in that subject is required for the particular job or course.

You'd need to ensure that each test was precisely the same difficulty as every other test ever taken if you want a clean, mathematical 51% in 2014 to be comparable to a 51% in 2010, for example.

The other way or working it out would be telling people which percentile they were in (as in, you're in the top 5%, etc) but you'd be relying on the cohort staying exactly the same in ability if you wanted to compare. Being in the top 5% in 1999 wouldn't necessarily mean the same thing as being in the top 5% in 2014 if the nature / size / quality of the test takers changed.

A-Cs in maths up 5%, A-Cs in English down 2%. Probably not as dramatic as many people feared.

Amber's: 7 A's, 3 B's.

She is v.happy.

Congrats! That's great.