UK > History > 2011 > Education (I)

GCSE results 2011:

One in four entries gets A or A*

French and other foreign languages
continue to decline in popularity

Thursday 25 August 2011
09.30 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Jeevan Vasagar, education editor
This article was published
on guardian.co.uk at 09.30 BST
on Thursday 25 August 2011.

Nearly one in four GCSE entries has been awarded an A or an A* grade in results published on Thursday, which show a further decline in the number of pupils taking French and other foreign languages.

Entries for French have fallen since languages were made optional at GCSE seven years ago. This year, they were down to just over 154,000 from around 170,000 last year, and compared with more than 300,000 in 2004.

French fell out of the top 10 most popular subjects last year, with more pupils choosing to study geography or art for GCSE. Religious studies has grown in popularity for the 13th year running, with nearly 222,000 entries, up from 188,704 last year.

About 650,000 children receive their GCSE results today in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a smaller group than in 2010. The number of 16-year-olds in the population has been declining since 2004.

The overall pass rate at grades A* to C has increased to 69.8%, while the percentage getting an A or A* has risen from 22.6% last year to 23.2% this summer.

The decline in French has been accompanied by falls in popularity for other languages, in a pattern that appears likely to cement Britain's reputation as a monolingual country. Entries for German are down to below 70,000 while Spanish has dipped to around 66,000.

Geography has also waned in popularity.

This year's A-level results showed year-on-year rises in entries for maths, biology, chemistry and physics. And this year's GCSE results also show an increase in entries for physics, chemistry and biology. Physics is up 16.4%, chemistry 16.2% and biology 14.2%.

The number of pupils taking single sciences at GCSE surged in the previous year. Entries for chemistry and physics GCSEs rose by 32%, while those for biology were up 28%. Biology was the most popular of the three in last summer's results, with 129,000 taking the subject. This year there were nearly 148,000 entries for biology.

In last summer's results, Spanish appeared poised to overtake German at GCSE, with the numbers taking it rising to more than 67,000, while German entries fell to around 70,000 in 2010. The numbers taking Mandarin, Portuguese and Polish also rose last year, with the last of these thought to be fuelled by an increase in the number of pupils who are children of recent Polish migrants.

Last year's results showed that private school pupils were disproportionately likely to do languages and single sciences. The independent sector accounted for just 7.7% of all GCSE entries, but 15.4% of chemistry, 15.1% of biology and 14.8% of physics entries.

Last year's GCSE results showed that thousands more teenagers were sitting the exams at least one year early. Last summer, 11% of maths GCSE entries were taken early and 9.5% of English GCSE entries. In 2010, boys beat girls at GCSE maths for the second year in a row, following a decision to drop coursework in the subject. The proportion of boys getting grades A* to C in maths has risen again this year from 57.6% to 58.6%. The proportion of girls passing has also risen, from 56.8% to 58.3%.

Boys have also done better than girls in biology, where the male pass rate is 93% compared with 92.7% for girls, and in physics, where 93.9% of boys have passed compared with 93.4% of girls.

In last year's results, economics saw a higher pass rate for boys, though only around 3,000 candidates of either sex entered.

Ministers have announced plans to overhaul GCSEs in the future. From September 2012, pupils will sit all their exams at the end of the two-year courses, rather than throughout the course.

Pupils will also be marked on their spelling, punctuation and grammar in subjects that have a high "written English" element, such as history, geography, religious studies and English literature. Further reforms to GCSEs are expected to be announced after the review of the national curriculum is published.

    GCSE results 2011: One in four entries gets A or A*, G, 25.8.2011,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/25/gcse-results-one-in-four-get-a

Student protesters target NUS president

Police escort Aaron Porter away from crowds in Manchester
on day of protests against cuts and rise in tuition fees


Share Tracy McVeigh
Guardian.co.uk
Saturday 29 January 2011
17.45 GMT
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 17.45 GMT
on Saturday 29 January 2011.

As thousands of people joined student rallies in Manchester and London today to protest against public spending cuts and the rise in tuition fees, the National Union of Students leader Aaron Porter had to be escorted by police away from angry crowds calling for his resignation.

Some of the protestors in Manchester turned on Porter – who had been due to speak at a rally in the city – calling him a "Tory too". Porter had previously been calling for unity in the student movement, which has fractured as opinions differ over how best to conduct the demos and sit-ins being organised around the country against the cuts and fee increases.

Eggs and oranges were also thrown by a handful of the protesters at Shane Chowen, the NUS vice-president, when he tried to address the crowd. Up to 5,000 people had gathered to hear speeches from trade union leaders and later some scuffles broke out between the police and a group of about 150 people who tried to force their way into the University of Manchester's student union.

In London the protest remained mostly peaceful, though an attempt by a group to break through police lines and reach the Tory party HQ at Millbank – where angry scenes took place at previous demonstrations – resulted in a handful of arrests.

In their march through central London to Parliament, the protesters chanted slogans including: "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts" and banged drums.

Anger at government proposals to raise university tuition fees to £9,000 from next year and scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance were the main focus of the slogans and placards. One drew an analogy between events in north Africa and the UK and read: "Ben Ali, Mubarak ... Cameron, you are next."

At a potential flashpoint along the route – Topshop in the Strand – students stopped to yell abuse directed at owner Philip Green, whose controversial tax arrangements have attracted fury.

"Pay your tax, pay your tax," they chanted.

The store was guarded by a line of police, keeping protesters apart from the bemused shoppers trapped inside.

Police handed out leaflets in London informing protesters about their right to demonstrate and what to do if trouble flared.

Moritz Kaiser, a 17-year-old sixth former from Oxford, was among those protesting.

"The tuition fee hike will affect my family quite badly and it is unnecessary when you look at how much is lost in tax avoidance," he said.

A dual British-German national, he now intends to head to the continent to avoid the additional bill.

"I was going to study here, but in Germany it is only ¤500 a year, and you get a free bus pass," he added.

His friend Lucio Pezzella, also 17 and at a sixth form college in Oxford, said the "wrong people were being punished" for the economic plight the UK finds itself in.

"Ordinary people shouldn't have to pay for a crisis brought on by the bankers," he said.

The general secretary of the UCU lecturers' union, Sally Hunt, addressing the rally in Manchester, accused the government of being at "war with young people".

"It is betraying an entire generation," she said.

    Student protesters target NUS president, G, 29.1.2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/29/student-protesters-nus-president