And not only has it not highlighted any weaknesses, it has not highlighted any strengths either. Is that not also a problem?

I will be extremely disappointed if my son, in a few years, achieves the same grades as your daughter (or if the pupils in the school where I am a Governor achieve those sort of grades). Not disappointed in him or them, but disappointed in a system that will have abjectly failed to stretch the pupils’ abilities. A good system is one which creates a spread of marks, not one where everybody scores top marks at everything, whatever parents may say.

GCSE’s are not perfect, nor is the education system; particularly as it continues to fail those who have more practical skills and interests and force them through the ‘sausage machine of academic qualifications.’ However, it is complete madness to scrap everything that has been learnt and developed in secondary education over the last 30 years to suit the whim of a minister who did all right in his O levels in his privileged world of private education.

This would seem to be the (subjective, even arbitrary?) standard against which GCSEs are said to have failed. An example – I live in The Netherlands. All of the children at our international school (no names, won’t take long to guess) take GCSE Dutch, many in Year 9, many get an A or A*. Is this below par or not fit for purpose because they are so young? No. I learnt French and German at school, and Dutch on the streets, so to speak, which allows a nice comparison from a position of some expertise. Perusing through the syllabus for Dutch IGCSE, one thing is clear – if anyone masters the subject-matter of this syllabus, they would be able to hit the streets running with Dutch, understand and be understood, and function pretty well, barring the occasional lack of vocabulary. That is a considerable achievement, and an eminently useful and practial one. So it is eminently fit for purpose because the course work and exam demonstate that a decent level of language has been achieved.

Now, apply that to other subjects, according to your knowledge. Is the GCSE per se unfit for purpose, or is it simply a matter of ensuring challenging but useful and achievable content, and setting the bar for cerain grades at a level to distinguish real achievement while avoiding the “all must have prizes” dogma? I don’t think that is difficult to answer.

Have to comment that there is a body of evidence that standards are falling, from the PISA assessments internationally and from the regular analyses from the University of Durham. But these are arguments for re-calibration and for re-organisation (a central authority for exams rather than race-to-the-bottom exam board competition?) not for wholesale replacement with a new system based on a rose-tinted view of the standards of the past. I did O and A levels and went to a grammar school just like Mr Gove, who is a year younger than me, and I’m not sure I had a harder time than my children, who are now spread through the whole public examination life experience (!) or that they are learning less. And we had to achieve something like a baccalaureate, in everything but name – English, Maths, a language and 2 other O levels at grade C or above, or no entry into the 6th form. What’s in a name? Not a new exam system, surely!

There are many aspects of improving our education system and giving children the skills and knowledge they will need – it would be nice if noisy parents really did give a damn and actually supported their schools rather than complaining and doing nothing, and I’ve run into too many truly dreadful teachers and incompetent school managers, but that’s only my experience. But I feel, without being able to prove it, that clamouring for a new exam system is pointless when a thorough review of the current system, which has the merit of being understood, would suffice.

And what is wrong with recalibrating a system in which future results would appear to go down? After all, such grade inflation would not happen at a British university, would it?

An ability to retain a broad range of applicable skills and information is essential when required to “pick up new tasks and opportunities”. But if everything is learned in a modular, unconnected way then, as a great man once said: “Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain.”

C- for proof reading.

To quote the IBO, the IB MYP programme consists of eight subject groups integrated through five areas of interaction that provide a framework for learning within and across the subjects. Students are required to study their mother tongue, a second language, humanities, sciences, mathematics, arts, physical education and technology. In the final year of the programme, students also engage in a personal project, which allows them to demonstrate the understandings and skills they have developed throughout the programme.

If you want to create a well educated society how could you consider giving your children less than this.

Exams only have value if they function in a meritocratic way. Too many left-wing apologists see ‘meritocracy’ as a dirty word, believing the Blairite nonsense that somehow everyone can succeed at everything. It’s not about some people doing ‘well’ and some doing ‘badly’, it’s about everyone doing well at the things they’re good at. If a student scores highly across all their subjects, how can they, their school or any employer or university distinguish their strengths. Rather than a good spread of marks punishing the less able, a narrow spread punishes the more able by failing to identify or distinguish their abilities.

Also, a return to a reliance on exams is definitely to be welcomed. Back in the days of O-levels people complained that they were hard. Information: they’re meant to be. Modular course-work doesn’t in any way reflect real-life. In the world of work, you can’t learn one thing, apply it, then forget about it and learn something else. You have to know everything all the time and be able to draw on whichever part of your knowledge is appropriate in a given situation – just like an exam. (There is also an argument that exams tend to favour boys, coursework favours girls. So, since boys underperform at school, a return to exams would go some way towards redressing this inequality.)