This week saw success for thousands of pupils who got record breaking GCSE results. For the twenty third year in a row results have improved, but with this comes the ritual chastising of government and exam boards for ‘dumbing down’ learning. GCSEs are not perfect but critics should pick better days to make their argument. Enough is written and said about the weakness of the GCSE for the argument to be left alone here. In fact it is a distraction from a more serious discussion. Our obsession with using GCSE results as a yardstick for the performance of schools is reinforcing inequalities and feeding disengagement with education amongst some of the most vulnerable young people.

The success of a school hinges on the results of a relatively small group of students managing to pip over the C/D borderline to achieve 5 ‘good’ GCSEs. If a school can make enough interventions to push these students to get a C, especially in English and Maths, then the school is rewarded by progress up the league table.

Generations of teachers have been conditioned to focus on these small numbers of pupils to boost the number of 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths- the government’s Gold Standard. Schools rise and fall by this single measure and it is any pragmatic head’s top priority. The problem arises when the focus on this group takes attention and resources away from high achievers and those achieving the lowest results. Why invest the effort in the lowest achieving pupils when their results don’t contribute to the school’s bottom line?

The consequences of this 5 A*-C GCSE target can be seen in classrooms across England. Excessive streaming by ability, a growth in the use of B-tech qualifications, particularly in science, and pairing the most experienced and effective teachers with key groups are just some of the tactics used to boost borderline students up to 5 or more grades at a C. These methods are sending a dangerous subliminal message to young people disaffected with education: ‘If we don’t think you can get a C you will always struggle at school and even if you try hard you won’t achieve.’ I know of pupils who have worked tirelessly and against all odds to achieve D grades and they should be proud of their success. Instead the system says that they are failing. Essentially the message they get is ‘we don’t care’.

This is the direct result of government policy and targets that generate poor outcomes. Targets are not inherently wrong but they must complement the main purpose of a school: to provide the best education to all children. If a target distorts this then it can create new problems. This is a lesson we can learn from the NHS too. It falls on government alone to fix the problem and to do so as a matter of urgency.

It is crucial to make clear that schools did not create this key group obsession. Teachers are often working to meet targets that they are held to account for meeting – whether they agree with them or not is often irrelevant. Many teachers have been battling against a culture that benefits some students at the cost of others for years. However, there may be some blame for educationalists who have not done enough to challenge the status quo. Teaching unions, Ofsted inspectors, journalists and others have failed to highlight the problem despite having the collective power to make it clear to the public. Perhaps it is too fundamental a question for many to naturally consider.

There is certainly some blame for Labour though, mainly for not being bold enough to find an alternative way of judging schools. There were some last ditch attempts to recognise what schools were doing for gifted and talented groups or those struggling the most through measuring A* results and through Ofsted inspections. However, these are largely peripheral measures for schools and are certainly second to the current Gold Standard measure.

A pivotal way to change this would be to measure schools success by the progress that pupils make and what value teachers are adding instead of just looking at the limiting target of A*-C GCSE grades. If the key assessment for schools was progression then it would force them into stretching the most able and supporting those struggling most. One way of doing this would be to use progression up key stage levels as a measure of school and pupil performance. If a student improved by five and a half levels during their five years at secondary school then their results would be 5.5. This would not replace GCSEs but it would replace them as the key way of measuring schools. It would of course require major changes to the way key stage levels are used and assessed across primary and secondary. Any new system would also need to avoid being overly bureaucratic and process driven. But imagine a system where the most challenging state schools as well as the most prestigious private schools were assessed on how much value they added to each pupil? There are countless direct benefits to a method that reflects progression. Employers can clearly see the effort that pupils have made to improve their grades and can spot those that coast through school. Pupils can take pride in big improvements in their ability regardless of what level they started at. Teachers can be confident that they will be held to account for the achievement of all pupils and not just a select few. This measurement would hardwire schools into a culture where the results and learning of every pupil counted from day one.

There would be a political risk to making this change though. No government wants to alter a system that has reflected constant improvement for so long particularly for one that could show a dip in the ability of students and schools. In the short term parents may lose confidence in results and many take comfort in their sons or daughters getting a definitive grade when they finish school. There could also be professional resistance to this change. I have been startled by the absence of debate about this question in the profession. The current system is so embedded that many teachers may find it difficult to imagine such a fundamental shift in education policy ever happening.

This is one of the most important education issues in England today. Changing the main goalpost would create a cost free revolution in the way schools are run. Labour needs to bite the bullet and take the political risk. Simply put, the policy would reward schools where every pupil was stretched and nurtured to succeed, whatever their ability. The cost of not changing this key indicator of school success is the continuation and entrenchment of the achievement gap in our classrooms and, more widely, in our society.