Tiering in the GCSE: a children's rights perspective

This paper presents findings on students’ views and experiences of tiering in Northern Ireland and Wales from a children’s rights perspective. It considers the extent to which the current system of tiering fulfils the provisions in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the rights to education, best interests, non-discrimination, and participation. It emphasises that while the majority of students were supportive of tiering, their responses highlighted a range of negative effects for students taking foundation tier. Students described the impact of being placed in the foundation tier on their self-esteem and relationship with their peers, indicating that being allocated to foundation tier can have a labelling effect. Students who were taking foundation papers, or a mixture of foundation and higher tier papers, were more likely than those taking higher tier papers to report that they wanted to change tier and to raise issues overall regarding tiering. Furthermore, students who were faced with these difficult choices often had a poor understanding of tiering. The paper argues that alternative forms of differentiation should be considered, and presents students’ perspectives on some of these. It argues that we must ensure that young people have a good understanding of tiering and that their views and experiences of tiering are be taken into account when considering further reforms to GCSEs, to ensure that any methods used respect the rights of all students

The human rights of children in Wales: An evidence review

The report finds numerous examples of differential outcomes for children in areas such as health and wellbeing and educational attainment, particularly for those from a lower socio-economic background. Children from areas of higher socio-economic deprivation have higher rates of infant mortality, air pollution in their local areas, exclusion from school, tooth decay and obesity. They also have lower levels of educational attainment at each Key Stage, as do looked-after children and children from Gypsy and Gypsy Roma backgrounds. More data are needed in some areas to assess whether further inequalities exist. In particular, there are gaps on data relating to asylum-seeking and refugee children, and disabled children and children from ethnic minorities living in poverty. There is also an absence of disaggregated data in respect of instances of bullying in schools

The fairness of internal assessment in the GCSE: the value of students' accounts

The use of internal assessment within GCSE qualifications has always aroused controversy, primarily because of concerns about the authorship of students’ work. This has led to tighter controls and a reduction in its use over the last decade. The paper argues that the focus on the authentication of student work has neglected other aspects of fairness, such as ensuring that assessments elicit students’ best performance. Students’ accounts can contribute to our understanding of test fairness by showing what affects their performance and how these assessments are enacted within their contexts. The paper draws on a study which surveyed 1600 GCSE students and held focus groups with 128 others in Northern Ireland and Wales, in addition to data from the WISERDEducation multi-cohort study. A number of factors, including the assessment environment, reportedly affected students’ performance. According to student comments, the ways in which the assessment guidelines were enacted varied considerably between contexts, with significant fairness implications

Beth Nawr,2019 The survey results and analysis of the experiences and worries of children and young people in Wales and their priorities for the Children’s Commissioner.

Report on the results of a survey conducted with almost 10,000 children and young people in Wales for the Children's Commissioner for Wales

Young people’s views on choice and fairness through their experiences of curriculum as examination specifications at GCSE

This paper presents data that considers ways in which young people experience the curriculum through the lens of subject examination syllabuses (for GCSEs), their associated assessment techniques and structures and educational policies at national and school level concerning subject choice. Drawing upon an original qualitative dataset from a mixed-methods study of students’ views and experiences of GCSE from Northern Ireland (NI) and Wales, the paper explores students’ perceptions of choice and fairness in relation to studying various subjects at GCSE. Factors of importance are the subjects available to them through subject option selections at the school level and the ways in which GCSE courses are then administered. In relation to notions of choice and fairness, the paper considers how students see access to the curriculum moderated by national and school level decisions regarding the assessment of GCSEs; the extent to which assessment techniques such as tiering, controlled assessment and modularity, as well as school-level policy decisions about timing of entry to GCSEs (known as early entry) all combine to restrict students’ access to the full range of subjects and influence the ways in which they experience these subjects as curricula within their particular school settings