GCSE Results Day 2018 Reactions – What Students, Teachers and Education Experts are Saying
From the nervous wait to the big reveal, follow the responses to this year's secondary exam results…
- by Lloyd Burgess
- Former editor of Teachwire
The results are in! Envelopes have been opened, and students and teachers up and down the country have shared celebrations and commiserations.
Results days are always a mix of emotional extremes, where someone can be thrilled to receive a low passing grade while their classmate can be devastated about getting just the second-highest grade.
It’s nice to see that some students have the right attitude though:
It’s really sad how many tweets there are saying ‘if people are crying about getting an 8 instead of a 9 I’ll personally slap them’ and whatever.
— Eloise (@elswrightt) August 19, 2018
Success is relative and you should be happy for your peers, whatever grades they get.
I know I will be. #gcseresults2018 #GCSEs2018
She gets a 9 in ‘wisdom beyond her years’
The new GCSEs
This year is of course unique in that we have the 9-1 grading system, which made things difficult for teachers and students:
it’s so unfair that i will be competing for jobs against people who have sat gcses in previous years when this year’s exams were the hardest since the 1980s. no coursework, no books allowed in exams, literally all memory based. so unfair #gcseresults2018 #gcse2018
— caito b (@caitobealo) August 17, 2018
As well as families:
‘I got a 9 in my GCSE Maths’
— Scott Hughes (@ScottHughesUK) August 23, 2018
“A 9? What’s that mean?!”
‘I believe it was an A* in your day, Grandad!?” #gcseresults2018 #GCSEresultsday
And it also makes it a little difficult to read too much into this year’s findings. But we’ll try regardless.
Writing for Education Datalab, Philip Nye states that: ‘Across all subjects, 21.5% of entries were awarded a grade 7/A or above, compared to 21.1% last year’ and ‘At grade 4/C or above, 69.3% of entries achieved the standard this year, compared to 68.9% last year.’
While this isn’t a huge rise, Nye explains that both of these figures had been in decline since 2015, so this year’s increase bucks that trend.
So, what could be behind this improvement? Well, Nick Gibb was quoted in the Guardian saying:
“Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and pupils have shown their abilities by achieving excellent results today, with so many pupils meeting and exceeding the standards we expect.”
Let us fix that for you, Nick.
“…Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and pupils have shown their abilities by achieving excellent results today, with so many pupils meeting and exceeding the standards we expect.”
Trending
EBacc-lash
Nye also spotted that while entry numbers were up around 6 per cent for EBacc subjects, that this was rather dwarfed by those for science subject entries:
‘In England and Wales, science, additional science and further additional science GCSEs have been replaced this year with a new double award science GCSE….This appears to have prompted some schools to review their science entry decisions – putting more pupils in for the three single sciences, and hence contributing to 22%, 18%, 17% and 10% increases in biology, chemistry, physics and computer science entries respectively among 16-year-olds across the UK this year.’
Boys improve
The Guardian are reporting that boys appear to have been the major beneficiary of the new GCSE examinations (although it’s impossible to say whether the new GCSEs are the reason they’ve improved), as ‘results showed across-the-board improvements in boys gaining top marks while girls saw their share of top grades dip’.
‘Across the UK the proportion of students gaining an A or 7 and above, the new top grade used in England, rose above 20%, with boys in England closing the gap on girls with an almost one percentage point rise to 17.1% with girls unchanged at 23.4%.’
That gap, however, is still significant. Five per cent of girls’ entries received 9s, compared with just 3.6 per cent for boys.
Plus, there’s this:
454 girls and 278 boys https://t.co/meq6mSlsnH
— Ann Mroz (@AnnMroz) August 23, 2018
For some excellent statistical breakdowns of this year’s results the Ofqual site has the following:
- Variability in GCSE results for centres
- Map of GCSE grade outcomes by county in England
- Distribution of GCSE 9 to 1 grades
Twitter reacts
From the anxious buildup to the big day to the opening of the envelopes teens and teachers alike have been taking to social media to share their joy, vent their frustrations, and everything in between.
We’ve picked out some of the best:
‘‘Twas the night before results when all through the house all that could be heard was the daughter yelling she doesn’t want to open her results tomorrow and feels sick! I know the feeling
— Headteacher In Heels (@jopheadinheels) August 22, 2018
Every cloud…
maybe only getting 3 hours of sleep is a good thing and I won't be able to process it properly if I get bad results #gcseresults2018
— Elliot Kempson (@KempsonElliot) August 23, 2018
It’s never too late
is it too late to revise? #resultsday2018 #gcses2018 #resultsday
— anna (@annadvyy) August 22, 2018
They probably didn’t write their exam in TXT SPK, tbf
Just saw on someone's Facebook status:
—(@CySaunders24)August 23, 2018
" GCSE rezults 2day rlly nervus "
I can tell you your English grade now if you want? #gcseresults2018 #Resultsday
Glass half empty
It’s weird how my results are siting somewhere all marked and ready to be opened and make me cry #gcseresults2018
— Ella-Rose (@EllaRoseWalsh1) August 21, 2018
Smart
on results day i’m going to rock up with no shoes on so that people ask where my shoes are instead of what i got #GCSEresultsday #GCSEs2018
— lana (@Alannahx5SOS) August 18, 2018
We’re already on our third here. Catch up, mum
It is loud. There is shrieking. There are tears. One mum is wondering whether 11am is too early for a celebratory gin. It’s #GCSEresults2018 at @SHSKSchool and it is joyous.
— Rebecca Dougall (@SHSKHead) August 23, 2018
Dress for the results you want…
i’m dressed like a failed actor because i’m predicting my future after i fail my exams #gcseresults2018
— grace (@peakyblndrs) August 23, 2018
Regardless of whether students have been successful or not, whether they’ve overachieved, underachieved or hit their predicted grades dead-on, the issues of stress, pressure and mental health remain…
#gcseresults2018 #GCSEs2018 as much as I may joke, our gcse’s have really been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done – to a point where I still feel like my mental health isnt okay even 2 months after school ended. I’m just praying I get good grades so it’s all worth it
— sᴋʏʟᴇʀ ɢʀᴇʏ (@discmfrt) August 19, 2018
So is Michael Gove gonna pay for my anti depressants or what? #gcseresults2018
— Ciera Tinney (@TinneyCiera) August 15, 2018
Haha! Michael Gove feeling? Good one.Wonder how Micheal Gove is feeling, knowing 100s of 16 year olds are so nervous to open an envelope tomorrow, as he created papers which allowed students who could achieve a 9 to do their best, leaving those scraping 4s struggling to answer the first questions #gcseresults2018
— Ella Duncan (@Ellaa_Duncann) August 22, 2018
Main image credits clockwise from top left: @MHSG, @TimSmithCEO, @WiganCouncil, @StMattAcad, @DorsetEchoCaz, @SWS_School
