If you were born in 1969/70 and left school in about 1985/6 please help my research!?

Question

I need this to make my novel in progress as realistic as possible!

If you left school in about 1985/6 please can you tell me what options were available to you where now we have GSCE's and National Diploma's in the last 2 years of Secondary School.

What exams did you take and what was the grading scheme?

What subjects were available/ compulsary?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

What you are saying makes sense if the person is born between January and August. It is a year out if they were born in September to December (they would leave school in 1986/87).

They would have sat O-levels not GCSEs (which were introduced in 1988) And there would have been streaming for some classes and groups of options for the olevels you take.  

Answer 2

I left in 1985 from Scottish Education, I got 4 O'Grades and the options were either staying on for A Levels, going to college or finding work.  I am now a teacher and I think there are far too many options for secondary students today.  What is your noval about?

Answer 3

i left in 1986, and remember it was GSCE"S at the time.

i took only 4 exams ...

english..grade 5.

maths...grade 4

history...grade 4.

child care...grade 1

Answer 4

Before 1988 schools offered CSE and GCSE Ordinary (O) Levels. CSE was graded1-5, 1 was the top grade and equivalent to O Level grade C. O Levels were graded A-E but only A-C counted as a pass.

There was some course work for CSE but most, and all O Levels were exam based.

Schools didn't do national diplomas, you had to go to college for that even though they existed.

O Levels were graded on how well the cohort did, so the top 10% got an A grade. Only 50% of students got C or above.

A lot of students did not do exams at school at all.