‘WHEN is a pass not really a pass?’ educationally speaking, I am not sure that our Education Minister knows.

For two years now, schools across the country have been working harder than ever with their students towards achieving the ‘good pass' level 5 in English and mathematics and in all other subjects next year.

This was the grade that our Ministers for Education, Gove, Morgan and now Greening, suggested would help raise academic standards in our schools.

A level 5, it was stated, would be harder to achieve than the traditional GCSE ‘C’ grade, more closely aligned to a GCSE high ‘C’ low ‘B’, meaning that all of those students who struggled to get the old pass, grade ‘C’ would come up short of this new ‘good pass’.

In a recent letter to the Education Select Committee, Ms Greening has now suggested a two-tier ‘pass’ this year.

A level 4 would be equivalent to a grade ‘C’ and be called a ‘standard pass’ with a level 5 constituting a ‘strong pass'.

Where does this leave our Year 11 students?

I am sure, as a parent of a Year 11 student, I am not alone in thinking that the government are using our children as guinea pigs for an idea that did not come from well-informed educational debate, but from the machinations of a deluded Secretary of Education who did more to undermine the teaching profession than any other in recent history.

Thank you, Mr Gove.

However, if we think it is bad this year, our poor Year 10 students have this to look forward to in all of their GCSEs next year.