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requested that the Secondary Examinations and Assessment Committee (SEAC) work
with the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) using the Further
Education Unit’s notions of a core skills curriculum (Green 1997: 91) to identify and
assess the attainment of these skills within A-Ievel study.
Green’s account of the core skills concept suggests two reasons for the rejection of the
proposals at A level:
First, the examining boards felt that they would rather use the limited amount of
coursework assessment available for assessing subject knowledge rather than
core skills, and, second, the government feared the inclusion of core skills
would in some way ‘distort’ A-Ievels.
(Green 1997: 91)
The core skills episode was seen by other critics as ''another half-hearted attempt to
make A-Ievels more ‘relevant™ (Young 1997:48). Core skills were to return as a
major issue after the publication of the 1996 Dearing Report, in that context as one
means ofbridging the academic∕vocational divide.
The Boards’ Positive Alterations to the A-LeveI Pattern
As well as such attempts at making structural changes to A levels, Young and Leney
identify what they call “incremental changes'”, by which they mean:
...changes in content of subject syllabuses, the introduction of new subjects, the
development of new subject cores and new forms of assessment, including the
shift from linear to modular syllabuses. (Young 1997: 48)
It is interesting to note that they attribute these changes, which they view favourably,
as representing:
...efforts on the part of teachers to make A-Ievels more relevant and accessible
to the wider range of students who were now staying on in sixth forms.
(Young 1997:48)
No mention is made of the examining boards, which had in fact activated these
changes. Except for the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), teachers in