2. Key messages
Achievement and exam logistics Achievement
There is a lot of confusion and manipulation of data in terms of success rates for resits in FE. The published pass grade for FE Institutions at GCSE Maths with Edexcel in the June 2014 exam series was 36.5%, with Sixth Form Colleges having a success rate of 38.4%. Yet the Government statistical data releases paint a much worse picture with success rates of less than 10% and in reality the situation is dire. The actual figures for 2012/2013 state a pass rate of 6.2% for FE sector colleges and if you take sixth form colleges out of that it drops to just 3.9% achievement. That shows a significant number of the 116,000 learners not making the grade and raises the question of the relevance in making achievement of a grade C mandatory when we know that 40% of students leave school without a C grade and of that 40%, by the age of 19 yrs, 90% will still not have achieved it. With the raising of the school participation age to 18 yrs the situation has worsened rather than improved.
Exam Logistics
The exam hall at The Norfolk Showground ready for mock GCSE resits.
The project has also unearthed a few surprises. The sheer scale of the problem and the logistical implications were crystalised with the case study of City College Norwich (CCN). The college has around 1,000 students needing resits in both maths and English. The college does not have the room to accommodate this number so in order to have a trial run and be ready for the June exam they laid on mock exams in February at The Norfolk Showground. All exams have to be sat at the same time on the same day unless the provider can isolate students which would be impossible.
The sheer scale of this situation is staggering. The cost of the whole GCSE resit process will cost CCN £50,000 this year. The Deputy Principal, Jerry White, has bought calculators, compasses,
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