A level results

That problem is not a surprise, the surprise is that any of them do.

Some thoughts and facts on this:

There are just shy of 1 million kids in a school year. About 250k of them go on to complete a levels. Those achieving 4 a*’s at a level is circa 5 % of the cohort. That means that if you lined up all primary school kids on the day they start school then I in 100 are going to exit with top grades at a level. Getting top grades is still pretty rare.

Personal statements and achievements outside of education really do count these days, I got a place a Leeds University by being asked a few questions about the coefficient of friction, today’s kids have to show more rounded capability.

I sat o levels in 84 and a levels in 86. I got A in o level maths and A in a level maths ( with mechanics, which is now called further maths). I still have the papers and I’ve looked at the current papers vs what we did, they are strikingly similar, but the current a level paper has matrix transformations that I only saw at university ( mech eng degree). My son had no difficulty (beyond some of the language) in doing an ‘86 maths a level paper.

In my day, an A grade was capped at 10% of the cohort, this year A* was 17% of the cohort. It’s increased, but not to the point of having no value.

Teaching is very different today, They coach to results rather than teaching to a syllabus. When I was at school the end result defined my success or failure, today the teacher sees it as their badge of honour.

The kids that I know are quite different form in my youth. They are way more focused and directed than I recall.

There seems to be quite a lot of old men trying to claim it was tougher when they were kids. It’s a story that repeats every generation.

Quite agree re integration.

I did maths A level in 1976 - There were three sections to the paper, pure maths (including the dreaded integration which once it got beyond the trivial, was where maths and I parted company), mechanics (men holding weights in free fallling lifts and so on) and statistics. There was also a Further Maths A level - some people did Maths, Further Maths and Physics. Not me.  I did get an A grade, but I answered the maximum allowed stats questions and the minimum required pure and mechanics ones. 

The A level exams in 1986 were more difficult to pass, and more difficult to get a top grade in.

It was definitely tougher when this old man was a kid.  UK academic qualifications have been massively devalued.  The system has been deliberately engineered so that the exams are now easier to pass.  And the proportion of Firsts awarded by universities has more than quadrupled in the last 25 years.


There's absolutely no way that the young adults of today are significantly brighter (or more academic or directed or focused) than their counterparts of 20, 30, 40 years ago.  I certainly see no signs of this in the actual workplace (I've worked at 18 companies now, mostly large ones).

And I would wager that the specific A level maths exams I took in 1986 (MEI Maths, MEI Further Maths) were harder than today's A level maths exams.  The MEI Maths board was proper hard.  So there.

Yep, that’s the old man tough talk I was referring to, it’s the same in sport. My Dad for ever tells me that these young cyclists  of today have nothing on his generation, but the truth is that a decent club rider of 2021 could break the world record on 25 mile TT set in the early 80’s. In my sport I have done times this year that would have won the Ironman world championship from the early 80’s. I’m 53!! Take it to running and you’ll see the same thing. The first winner of the London marathon wouldn’t make the top 15 in 2019 and would not have been quick enough to qualify for the team gb Tokyo team. 
The interesting experiment would be to see how a cohort of kids did with your ‘86 MEI papers using current teaching techniques. My wager is that there would be a noticeable uplift in results.

Go and look at the charts on page 12 and see how much modern kids must be supercharged versions of human beings. Either that or something else changed……

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04252/SN04252.pdf 

With regard to individual and personal scenarios, the exam board setting your papers has a huge effect. As I said we had Oxford-set O levels and London-set A levels. My maths was A level maths, A Level further maths and A level Pure Mathematics with Theoretical Mechanics. We did matrices in the ordinary A level. I did Physics too. I also have a Degree, a Masters and two lots of professional qualifications both from Institutions with Royal Charters. This is all bollocks because I still work with clients (ie those with the power to employ my skills, sack me and question my work) who have trouble finding their elbow when wiping their arse. I have met plasterers with more valid opinion and understanding of the world than policy setters advising cabinet ministers and I have met ultra-qualified, planet-sized-brain folks belittled by morons with larger personalities but no definable skills beyond that. 

I have no doubt your son found the older papers no trouble as his own achievements clearly mark him out as exceptional but those charts on page 12 of that pdf need other data. There were lots of A level students back then but not that high a percentage from state schools. We had an annual intake of around 200. Our Upper 6th was around 16. Of those around half went to Uni or Poly. In 1986.

Education has changed as have humans: our beliefs, standards, society and understanding, particularly of technology. We were not allowed to possess a calculator at our school but my youngest kids are doing all their work on the Android tablets each child is given in Year three. We had to go to libraries to find stuff out and the books were often not the latest thinking if they had publication dates in the 60s or 70s - my kids can research in seconds giving them more time to think about it and firm form opinions or make juxtaposed rationale in a word processed with no errors essay. 

So the competition is harder. Maths is hard anyway if your brain can’t do it (arty son #3 not a clue; logical son #1 walked through it - they’re born minutes apart so it’s not any difference in upbringing aside from themselves) and passing at the highest level needs to equate to something the previous generation who are the new employers can relate to but looking at those charts again I can’t help feeling that overall it’s not as hard to say you passed your exams than it was before. 

I’ll also add in fairly blunt terms that education is much kinder today than in our day. Son #2 (the middle triplet) is autistic on a scale that means he’s reached the age of 20 without being run over, bullied, missing school or not wishing to be alive. He’s had a focussed education that has followed the curriculum as it suits him and this has been delivered at schools and colleges that don’t behave like the institutions that were littered across the Epsom of my youth, where the annual treat was to collect the rubbish from the Downs after the Derby meeting. PG will know what I’m talking about when I say thick kids were referred to as “Ebbas” throughout my school life. I recognise that kids like #2 were that disruptive kid in the corner that kept running out of the classroom and if you tried to fight them they went ballistic and did for anyone (#2 is 6’ 4” now - he was never a little kid). So it’s not just easier now on kids like #2 but it’s also easier on the others because their education is being delivered far better in a system that has understanding and empathy for a far wider spectrum of children. Overall they are luckier, as we were than our parents who in my case were bombed as babies and left school still on food rationing. 

The cycling analogy is an example of the march of technology and understanding. The bikes on the road today weight as much as one wheel and gear set of the past. The available diet and understanding of training is different each year, in cycling this includes the cocktails of drugs and blood oxygenators obviously. Similarly if a Premier League footballer headed a 1970s football they’d be in hospital before the final whistle and if they kicked one wearing modern boots they’d be out for a year whilst their metatarsals mended. Perhaps education is like most things: you can’t realistically compare the results and achievements of different generations because there are far too many affecting factors. 

ETA: I made an error and corrected it to show how easy it is to hand in work that isn’t error-ridden and in some cases totally illegible. 

I don’t know whether A levels were harder in my day or not and I’m not bothered either way. I did well in mine, not A* well, but well enough to get into a decent University. If I wanted to be an accountant/doctor or go into a career that needed a professional qualification then I’d have gone, but I’d had enough of academic life and wanted to get out into the real world and into a job. I’ve worked hard and although I’m not the most academic person I know (which I’m quite happy about), the problem solving / solution forming part of my brain works very well, so I’ve done OK, especially in the last 10 years where I’ve been able to work on and demonstrate my leadership skills.

My eldest found secondary school too easy and got A’s and B’s in his GCSEs without having to put any effort it. He found that didn’t work when he was doing A levels and he got frustrated with education, still got 3 x A levels above C grade but was adamant he wasn’t going to University. I then knew what my parents thought when I said the same all those years ago but I was even more understanding! He didn’t know what he wanted to do, so got a job at a local printing company as a machine operator. That was back in December, he passed his 6 months probation after 2 months and got a decent pay rise and after only being there 7 months he was promoted to assistant production supervisor and he’s in charge of a new unit they have just leased along with a brand new fully computerised printing machine and a couple of guys much older than him and he’s doing a great job. He won’t be doing it for ever, but I’m probably more proud of him than I have been or would be for academic results.