The real unfairness and scandal of GCSE exams

Your article focused on the diverging content and results in GCSEs sat by students in different parts of the UK (GCSEs should be branded separately in England, Wales and NI, expert says, 19 August). While it is important to recognise this unfairness, it pales into insignificance when considering the GCSE syllabus followed by private schools.
Many private schools have ditched GCSEs – which state schools have to follow – in preference for the easier International GCSEs. These IGCSEs allow students to do coursework – something binned in the state system nearly a decade ago – and the questions, in general, are less hard.
I have been teaching for over 25 years and made this discovery when I moved into the private system in the last four years of my career. I cannot explain how shocked I was. When I addressed this issue with the headteacher, he simply stated: “That’s not our problem.”
Private schools have the time and staff to provide more pastoral care for students, which is obviously one of the most important ingredients to academic success – think class sizes of 16 compared with 30 or more in state schools, for a start – but to be given the option to sit easier exams seems unethical to me. How can it be acceptable for a pupil at Eton to sit an easier exam than a student at a state school?
I hope this goes some way to explain how independent schools are able to outperform state schools. It’s not about pupils’ ability, it’s not about the quality of teachers, it is about a totally unfair system.Name and address supplied
Lee Elliot Major says: “It’s a national scandal that every year a fifth of teenagers fail to master the basic GCSE grades in both English and maths” (Ministers urged to act over numbers failing English and maths GCSEs, 21 August). Isn’t the problem that the exams aren’t basic? The foundation paper involves solving simultaneous equations and trigonometry. How many adults would pass? As a teacher, I believe the scandal is that to get virtually any job you need to have a grade 4 in maths; otherwise you are denied jobs such as driving a bus or working as a nursery nurse caring for toddlers.
We need to widen the jobs available to those who don’t attain a grade 4; if the job does not require someone to solve quadratic equations, then let’s not discriminate against them. Corinna JonesLondon
The specific set of skills necessary to pass GCSE maths and English (language techniques, structure and effect, factorising quadratic equations, trigonometry etc) are rarely revisited later in life.
Rather than consign young people to lives with fewer chances, let’s broaden our definitions of potential and success, introduce a wider curriculum that develops resilience and a joy in learning, and stop wringing our hands.
As a tutor in both maths and English to GCSE, I may be shooting myself in the foot, but surely the mental health of our young people and range of opportunities for them should come first. Mary GildeaCharlton, London