Qualifications at Key Stage 4

General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSEs)

GCSEs are the examination courses most commonly studied in Years 10 and 11.  The school selects the subject specifications from the range offered by the different examination boards.  The specification determines exactly what content is involved and how it is examined; the specification numbers are shown on the subject pages of this booklet so that you can look at the detailed course descriptions on the exam board websites.

Reforms to GCSEs

There have been major changes to GCSEs over the past few years.

The main features of the reformed GCSEs are:

• A grading scale of 9 to 1 is used, with 9 being the top grade.  This allows greater differentiation between students, particularly at the higher grades.

• Assessment is mainly by exam, with other types of assessment used only where they are needed to test essential skills.

• There is new and more demanding content, developed by the government and the exam boards.  

Courses are designed for two years of study – they are no longer modular, so students take all their exams at the end of their course.

Revised GCSE Grades 

The change to 9-1 grades is not just a switch from letters to numbers: the four higher grades (A*-C) have been replaced by six grades, with the top of 9 being higher than the top of A*.  The new grade 5 is more demanding to achieve and may well be used as the minimum for access to post-16 courses, which is a higher threshold than the old C grade.