Elliot Major, Lee;
Parsons, Sam;
(2022)
The forgotten fifth: examining the early education trajectories of teenagers who fall below the expected standards in GCSE English language and maths examinations at age 16.
(CLS Working Papers
2022/6).
Centre for Longitudinal Studies, UCL: London, UK.
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Abstract
Successive Governments have failed to address an issue that continues to plague the British education system: many teenagers leave secondary school without the ‘expected standard’ of a grade 4 pass in GCSE English language and maths. We use the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) to assess the antecedents and academic trajectories of the 1 in 5 (18%) of teenagers in England who did not achieve these two thresholds, despite benefitting from many education reforms. We find that identification of falling below expected standards in pre-school assessment of ‘school readiness’ (age 3) and in teacher assessment of literacy and number skills at school entrance (age 5) are both highly predictive of failure to attain a grade 4 or higher in GCSE English language and maths at age 16, even after controlling for family background and individual characteristics. One in 4 children below expected levels at age 5 fail to achieve a grade 4 pass or above in their English language and maths GCSE at age 16 compared with 1 in 10 children above expected levels at age 5. Half of pupils who fail at age 16 were judged to be behind at age 5. We conclude that future attempts to improve standards in English and maths will likely only succeed if high quality support is provided during the pre-school years, support is provided to improve the home learning environment, and teachers are able to identify, diagnose and respond appropriately to children falling behind at early education stages.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | The forgotten fifth: examining the early education trajectories of teenagers who fall below the expected standards in GCSE English language and maths examinations at age 16 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/C... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10154942 |
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