Allegations made by a Sunday newspaper of grade manipulation have now been shown to be without foundation.  Mr David Kent, Edexcel’s Chair of GCSE Mathematics, said today that the students were worthy of the grades they received in their GCSE exams.  He denied any suggestion that he had said grades had been 'fixed'.

Direct comparison for GCSE Mathematics for this year's cohort marks cannot be made with the 2002 students.  QCA's changes for GCSE Mathematics were introduced in 2001 for teaching during 2002/3 and were first examined this year across all the boards.

The Mathematics GCSE is made up of three units: two written mathematics papers and one piece of coursework.  This year, for all boards, the coursework included a statistical project - something not required of last year's students.  This is why direct comparison cannot be drawn, as there is a new element of work introduced.

However, changes to the curriculum generally result in a drop in students’ performance, which corrects itself as people get to grips with the changes in the curriculum.  The change in the proportion of candidates achieving grade C or above in GCSE Mathematics in 2003, when compared with 2002, is evidence of this factor.

ends

Stevie Pattison-Dick
Media Affairs Manager
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