GCSEs and A levels still matter, but are they enough in a rapidly changing world? In this post, our Head, Mr Richardson reflects on why education must go beyond exams to equip young people with the skills, confidence and mindset they need to thrive beyond school.
Our current examinations framework, in the form of GCSEs and A levels, does not fully build or assess the skills that young people need to thrive beyond school. This should not come as a great surprise. A levels were introduced in 1951, as were the O levels that predated GCSEs, and the “new” GCSEs themselves are now 40 years old.
While curriculum content and assessment methods have evolved over time, these qualifications remain recognisably rooted in a model of education designed for a very different era.
In 1951, school pupils didn’t have calculators, never mind computers, most households didn’t own a television set or a telephone and trains were almost exclusively hauled by steam engines. The UK’s major employment sectors included coal mining, shipbuilding, steel production and textiles. It is hardly surprising that qualifications designed in that era are simply not fit for purpose in 2026.
Let me be clear from the outset: these qualifications still matter.
They remain a necessary condition for progression to the next stage of study, whether that is Sixth Form, university, an apprenticeship or another pathway.
Strong GCSE and A level outcomes continue to open doors, and we will never waver in our commitment to helping pupils achieve the very best results of which they are capable. However, it is also increasingly clear that these qualifications, valuable though they are, are no longer sufficient on their own. Designed for a very different era, they assess a relatively narrow range of knowledge and skills, largely through time-pressured written examinations. They tell us something important about academic attainment, but they tell us far less about many of the qualities that determine success in higher education, the workplace and life beyond formal education.
Universities and employers are remarkably consistent in the message they give us. They want young people who can think independently, communicate clearly, work effectively with others, manage their time, adapt to new situations and cope with uncertainty.
They value curiosity, resilience, initiative and the ability to apply knowledge in unfamiliar contexts. These are precisely the areas that GCSEs and A levels struggle to capture or develop in any meaningful depth. This reality presents schools with a clear challenge. If we limit our curriculum offer to examination courses alone, we risk doing our pupils a disservice. We may help them to pass exams, but we will not fully prepare them for what comes next. At CHS, that has never been an acceptable outcome.
This is why our Sixth Form curriculum is deliberately designed to offer more than a narrow diet of examined subjects. We have been doing this for many years and, for September 2026, we have expanded our +1 options so that students can develop an even wider range of skills alongside their A level studies.
These courses encourage different styles of learning, greater independence, collaboration, creativity and reflection, while still leading to recognised qualifications and, in many cases, UCAS points. We have also expanded our range of BTEC courses, a style of learning and assessment that is more relevant to the skills that our students will need beyond CHS, and increased the flexibility of this offer.
Alongside this, we have our Pathways programme to help students engage more directly with the world of work in their chosen vocational areas. Whether a student is interested in medicine, engineering, the creative industries, business, sport or another field entirely, Pathways is designed to demystify professional life, build confidence, and help them understand how their academic learning connects to real-world contexts.
In the Upper School, we have introduced the Higher Project Qualification already but there is more work to be done in this area and we will be talking to students and parents about the possibilities and opportunities for change in the near future.
As part of this challenge, we will need to question how many GCSEs our students should be studying. I was asked several times in the recent 11+ interviews ‘how many GCSEs do CHS students sit?’ I think that the implication in the question is that more GCSEs equals a better education. If so, we need to seriously challenge that assumption and question whether all of our students, and especially the most able, should be doing something more interesting instead. Even the most competitive universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have clearly stated that they really only expect eight GCSE grades, so why do more when you could be doing something that offers more challenge and broader skill development?
Taken together, these elements reflect a simple but important principle. GCSEs and A levels are an important foundation, but they are not the finished product. Our responsibility as educators is not just to help pupils succeed in the next set of exams, but to equip them with the skills, habits and mindset they will need to flourish at the next stage – and in a rapidly changing world beyond education.
This broader view of success has long been part of the CHS ethos. What has changed is the urgency of the task. As the pace of change accelerates, the need to look beyond traditional qualifications has never been greater.
We are confident that by combining academic rigour with curriculum breadth and purposeful engagement with the wider world, we are giving our pupils the best possible preparation for whatever comes next.
