How can we stop destroying the prospects of a generation? Scrapping compulsory GCSE resits will be a start | Polly Toynbee
Why This Matters
Key context: <p>Michael Gove calls the axing of his Tory strategy ‘bringing back stupid’. He doesn’t seem to care that it did more harm than good </p><p>GCSE results day was marked with the usual front pages filled with pictures of beaming students. What you didn’t see was the invisible <a href="https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/nearly-40000-pupils-forced-to-resit-gcse-english-because-of-who-marked-their-paper?utm_campaign=613128">third of 16-year-olds</a> in England who failed their maths and English GCSEs, the obstacle to their future.</p><p>That’s 360,000 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/aug/19/gcse-resits-england-harm-teenagers-mental-wellbeing-ucl">failed</a> in a system designed by Michael Gove as education minister to mark out winners from losers. It’s a cast of mind shared by many in his party who still yearn for the <a href="https://timesupforthetest.org/history-of-the-11">11-plus</a>, which consigned a random number of children to failure before they’d hardly begun. A few councils still do it.</p><p>Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/commentisfree/2026/aug/24/stop-destroying-generation-compulsory-gcse-resits-michael-gove">Continue reading...</a> This development from The Guardian highlights ongoing changes in the sector.
Michael Gove calls the axing of his Tory strategy ‘bringing back stupid’. He doesn’t seem to care that it did more harm than good GCSE results day was marked with the usual front pages filled with pictures of beaming students. What you didn’t see was the invisible third of 16-year-olds in England who failed their maths and English GCSEs, the obstacle to their future.That’s 360,000 failed in a system designed by Michael Gove as education minister to mark out winners from losers. It’s a cast of mind shared by many in his party who still yearn for the 11-plus, which consigned a random number of children to failure before they’d hardly begun. A few councils still do it.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
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