APPENDIX
Letter to Andrew Turner MP from Roger
Porkess (QCA 38)
We met across the committee room yesterday,
and, if I may say so, I appreciated your questions, both to myself
and to Mr. Tomlinson. There were, however, two places where I
felt we could have given you more informative answers.
AGGREGATING AS AND
A2
You asked Mr Tomlinson about the effect of the
AS being "easier" than the A2 and he gave you what is
now the official reply, that the AS consists of the easier questions
that would have been set in a legacy A Level and the A2 the harder
ones. I find this a somewhat unconvincing argument, and think
there is a better way of looking at the situation, exemplified
by this question.
"You have done AS German and are tying
to decide whether to continue onto A2 German next year, or to
do AS Mathematics instead. Which is going to be the more demanding?"
If the curriculum is right, both will be equally
demanding. They will both represent one year's work. The extra
technical demands of the A2 German will be balanced by the need
to come to terms with what is involved in studying Mathematics
at sixth form level. (And of course the same should be true for
any pair of subjects.)
I find the words "easy" and "hard"
unhelpful, whereas thinking in terms of the demands made on students
does seem to make things clearer. If we have the AS and A2 right,
then adding together two equally demanding years' work on a 50-50
basis is entirely appropriate.
The conclusion is the same but I think this
is a sounder way of arriving at it. Not only that, but it does
allow a loose check on the present curriculum that does not depend
on reference to legacy syllabuses which will soon be forgotten
anyway.
COMPARABILITY BETWEEN
SUBJECTS
You asked me about comparability between subjects
but time did not allow me to give as full an answer as I would
have liked.
Concern over the relative difficulty of science
and mathematics was recently expressed in the following paragraph
of the Roberts Review for the Treasury.
It is essential that pupils have a broadly
equal chance to achieve high grades in science and mathematics
as they would in other subjects. Without this fewer pupils will
choose to study science and mathematics at higher levels. The
review is firm that arguments about the merits of `levelling up'
or `dumbing down' are a distraction—pupils generally find
it more difficult to achieve high marks in science and mathematics,
this needs to be corrected.
This really does matter. Twenty years ago we
had about 100,000 A Level Mathematics students a year. Now we
are down to about half that number. Physics and Chemistry have
seen big declines too. Without a strong science and technology
base we will bequeath a third world country to our children and
grandchildren. But look at the table below.
AS RANKINGS, 2001 AND 2002
| 2001 |
| | 2002
|
| Subject | Rank |
Pass(%) | Fail(%) |
| Pass | Fail
| Rank |
| Welsh | 1 | 97.2
| 2.8 | | 97.8
| 2.2 | 1 |
| Classics | 2 | 96.0
| 4.0 | | 95.8
| 4.2 | 2 |
| Express Arts | 3 | 95.7
| 4.3 | | 95.6
| 4.4 | 3 |
| Music | 4 | 94.8
| 5.2 | | 91.5
| 8.5 | 9= |
| English | 5 | 94.7
| 5.3 | | 93.8
| 6.2 | 5 |
| History | 6= | 93.6
| 6.4 | | 92.1
| 7.9 | 8 |
| Media St | 6= | 93.6
| 6.4 | | 94.1
| 5.9 | 4 |
| | |
| | | |
|
| French | 11= | 91.0
| 9.0 | | 89.6
| 10.4 | 16= |
| Spanish | 11= | 91.0
| 9.0 | | 90.1
| 9.9 | 14= |
| Geography | 13 | 90.8
| 9.2 | | 90.1
| 9.9 | 14= |
| | |
| | | |
|
| Business St | 20= | 87.0
| 13.0 | | 86.9
| 13.1 | 21 |
| Chemistry | 20= | 87.0
| 13.0 | | 86.7
| 13.3 | 22 |
| Sociology | 22 | 86.5
| 13.5 | | 85.2
| 14.8 | 23 |
| Physics | 23 | 86.1
| 13.9 | | 84.6
| 15.4 | 24 |
| | |
| | | |
|
| Biology | 26 | 84.4
| 15.6 | | 82.9
| 17.1 | 26 |
| Psychology | 27 | 82.8
| 17.2 | | 82.7
| 17.3 | 27 |
| General St | 28 | 81.9
| 18.1 | | 80.1
| 19.9 | 28 |
| Computing | 29 | 80.5
| 19.5 | | 78.3
| 21.7 | 30 |
| Law | 30 | 79.5
| 20.5 | | 79.4
| 20.6 | 29 |
| Mathematics | 31 | 71.4
| 28.6 | | 77.9
| 22.1 | 31 |
| All subjects | | 86.4
| 13.6 | | 86.5
| 13.5 | |
Source: JCGQ
This shows the pass/fail rates for different subjects at
AS Level in 2001. There were very marked differences, with the
mathematics and sciences (which tend to attract the brighter students)
clearly much harder.
Of course 2001 was the first year of Curriculum 2000 and
so some disparities could be expected as teething problems. However
QCA did nothing to address the problem for 2002, and that despite
the Roberts Review. As you can see the relative difficulties of
subjects are virtually unaltered.
I alerted QCA to the problem before this summer's award,
pointing out that they needed to take an active role if the 2001
disparities were not to be repeated, and received a bland assurance
that everything was in hand. My own view is that they have neither
the methodology nor the competences to be able to deal with this
problem.
5 December 2002
| 
