A-level reforms 'could hurt top students'

The former head of the Government's exams watchdog has launched a scathing attack on proposals for reforming GCSEs and A-levels.

As thousands of secondary school pupils begin the annual exam season today, Sir William Stubbs criticises moves to end the GCSE as a school leaving certificate for all 16-year-olds.

In his first interview since winning compensation for his sacking during last year's A-level grading row, the former chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority also warns that replacing the A-level system with an English version of the international baccalaureate would run the risk of weakening the performance of high-flying pupils in their best subjects. Pupils would have to study six rather than three subjects in the last year of the sixth form.

Meanwhile, the organisation he used to head launches a £250,000 advertising campaign today aimed at restoring pride in A-levels after the exams fiasco last year.

Tony Blair and a group of teachers' leaders, MPs, business people and celebrities – including the cast of Hollyoaks and the television presenter Graham Norton – have signed a statement reassuring pupils that the exam is still "highly regarded by major figures from all walks of life".

In his interview with The Independent, Sir William attacks Ofsted, the Government's education standards watchdog, saying it is in danger of weakening its authority by declaring that the reforms, which introduced AS-levels, have failed.

Sir William questions a call by Mike Tomlinson, the new head of a government working party planning the exams shake-up, for the GCSE to be downgraded as a school-leaving certificate for all 16-year-olds.

Mr Tomlinson argues that the GCSE may have lost its usefulness as a certificate for all 16-year-olds because most of them now stay on in education. His working party will consider if it should become an internally marked progress check for most pupils.

"What [Tomlinson] doesn't say is the vast majority of people do still leave school at 16," Sir William said. "They go on to a sixth-form college or a further education institution. To leave the institution where they've had their secondary education with no kind of independent external assessment of their achievements, I find rather strange."

Sir William acknowledged that pupils might be saddled with too many subjects. "I can't see the point of taking 12 or 13 GCSEs, but there should be some kind of reliable assessment of achievement at the end of this period of education," he said.

Turning to Ofsted's claim that the Government's new Curriculum 2000 was failing to broaden the sixth-form curriculum, Sir William said: "Obviously, the mechanics didn't work perfectly." But he added: "The actual system has got great potential. The fact that the breadth of studies has not been that great has been down to the canny good sense of young people at a time of change. They dip their toe into the water just to test it.

"There has been a marginal increase but it will take time. I think the [Ofsted] report was premature ... and you don't want to see its authority weakened. I'm annoyed at what the report said. Curriculum 200 has got enormous potential."

* Controversial measures to speed up the academic development of the brightest children are to be introduced by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the testing and exams watchdog, officials said yesterday. A harder maths test for seven-year-olds will be on offer for the first time this year while schools are being encouraged allow pupils to take their national curriculum tests a year early if their teachers believe they can manage them.