Given that most private schools have done the allegedly now 'easier' igcse's and often get a disproportionate places at our top universities .

It'll be more obvious, with the numbered grades, who has done the 'new' GCSEs. So I hope it can be used as a tool to widen access - we'll see.

I suspect universities are aware of these differences and are looking at potential students more holistically and maybe using contextual offers to redress the difference?

It is not difficult to imagine a child coming from a secure comfortable background might find it easier to have the capacity to get those grades whereas a child coming from a more challenging background might be equally or more capable if they had the same resources.

Contextual offers are already used by the top universities, the private schools use the state school kids as guinea pigs. They orginally converted igcses' because they wanted more robust gcse as better prep for A levels but when a even more robust gcse comes along back off as too hard!!

"Britain’s leading private schools have refused to allow their pupils to be guinea pigs for this summer’s new tougher GCSEs even though teenagers at state schools have been forced to take them.

Of the 30 top private schools such as Eton College and Winchester, only one is exclusively doing GCSEs while the rest are largely taking the international GCSE, widely seen as an easier test. More than 500,000 state school pupils are doing the new tougher GCSEs, which Nick Gibb, the schools minister, has said are “more rigorous”.....

Head teachers have warned that state pupils could end up with worse exam results, which would “shut them out from top universities through no fault of their own”, according to Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College. Unlike all his private school rivals, Brighton has chosen to do only GCSEs this summer."

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/priv ... -fnf3g309n

You would need to subscribe to The Times and Sunday Times to get the full article.

I had no opinion about whether new GCSEs were easier or harder than IGCSEs until I read that, now I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the new GCSE is easier than IGCSE. If anyone but an education minister had said it...it used to be said there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but the statements of education ministers are beyond mere lies.

As for Richard Cairns: blatant a*se covering. Get your excuses in first why not.

They say the Top Universities give preference to State School students compared to Private school students. so I guess evens out any advantage.

I am no lover of our austerity obsessed Tory government but I can tell you for a fact that the current IGCSE English language and Literature exams are EASIER than the new 1- 9 GCSEs. Why? a) the IGCSE still allows coursework which can be redrafted several times, b) there is pre-release material for the language paper, and c) the weighting of the questions set against CW allows for better results. There are other reasons too I include the CIE IGCSE in that comment too. The new exams are a LOT more challenging. I can't speak for any other subjects.

All secondary schools should be forced to sit the same exams. I am heartily sick of this lack of parity and inequality which still favours private school dc over state school dc.