DOUBLING OF TOP GRADES COMPARED WITH LAST YEAR

  • Printer friendly view
 Friday, August 21, 2020 - 09:56

Students received their GCSE/Level 2 results yesterday at the Gibraltar College, Westside and Bayside Schools. Like the A Level/Level 3 results issued last week, the results were issued electronically. The issuing of GCSE results was affected by a worldwide outage affecting the Google Gmail Education platforms used by all three institutions. This outage delayed the start of issuing of results by approximately one hour. 

Despite the challenges that this academic year has provided for our students and teachers, they have once again risen to the occasion with a remarkable total of 268 grades at level 9 (the top grade attainable at GCSE) being obtained, 127 at Bayside and 141 at Westside.

This represents a doubling from last year of the number of top grades being awarded to students in our 2 secondary schools.

Equally impressive are the 2691 grades 9-1 obtained by students out of a maximum of 2694 grades awarded, representing a 9-1 pass rate of 99.9%.

Our GCSE/Level 2 students have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the summer examination session cancelled. In order to be able to issue results, the UK examination boards asked all examination centres to make teacher assessments of what grade students would be most likely to receive had they had the opportunity to sit their exams (Centre Assessment Grades - CAGs), and to place candidates in rank order. Our teachers worked diligently to provide these centre assessment grades for students and to place them in rank order as fairly and accurately as possible in order to enable the UK examination boards to issue results. The results the students have received today have been awarded by the UK examination boards on the basis of what their teachers submitted to the boards.

As in previous years, the Department of Education says it will be reporting the 9-1 pass rates as opposed to the traditional A*- C pass rates that individuals might be accustomed to see. It is important for students, parents, prospective employers and members of the public to recognise that every grade is valuable in the context of each student’s education. Every grade attained by our students during their examinations represents a milestone in their learning journey and it is important that we celebrate the successes of all of our students and see the value in all of their grades.

MORE IN PANORAMA PRINT EDITION

21-08-2020 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR