English GCSE results are badly down this year - NATIONALLY

[Itchyandscratchy]

A picture has been emerging tonight of schools up and down the country reporting English Language results severely down on predicted forecasts.

Biggest area of contention is - predictably - C/D borders.

Most schools are reporting an average 10% dip.

Reports say that AQA - amongst other boards - have, without any warning at all, raised grade boundaries significantly, thus affecting grades. Most students seem to have dropped a grade at least from their mock/predicted grades.

This will impact enormously on students and their FE paths; schools who face going into special measures when their A-C results dip and Ofsted swoop. More schools will be effectively forced to become academies.

Students are being used as political pawns and it absolutely STINKS. I am dreading handing out envelopes to those students tomorrow who will get D grades, which a year ago, with exactly the same work would have got Cs.

I am gutted.

[BringBack1996]

Is this for English Language, Itchy? The AQA English Lit grade boundaries don't look too bad so it must be.

English Lit Unit 1(H) - 19/60 for a C
English Lit Unit 2(H) - 16/54 for a C
English Lit Unit 3(H) - 16/54 for a C
English Lit Unit 5(H) - 21/40 for a C

[Itchyandscratchy]

Yes, language.
Guardian article //here

[Champneys]

it is a nightmare!

[Itchyandscratchy]

Useful blog here explaining details

[noblegiraffe]

In contrast, the TES maths section is discussing how ridiculously low some of the grade boundaries are for maths this year, with one exam board only requiring 55% for a C grade on the foundation paper and less than 80% for an A* on the higher paper.

Not sure what's going on.

[Champneys]

which board is this noble? Please say edexcel...... ds already looking stuffed on the english...

[Bunbaker]

I don't like the sound of this. DD's school is only "satisfactory" and this could be very bad news for the HT and the governors if it goes into special measures.

If they have changed the marking criteria ofsted should base their findings on what the grades would have been based on last year' marking criteria.

[Bunbaker]

I couldn't get anything on the link itchy

[noblegiraffe]

champney it was OCR linear. I think Edexcel linear had 26% for a C on the higher paper.

And the TES website has gone down for an upgrade

[loveisalaserquest]

"Upgrade" my foot... one thread on the TES has been quoted extensively already. Think they're covering themselves.

[noblegiraffe]

The Guardian story is here

[EdithWeston]

Isn't this the first set of exams since the 'name and shame' abandoning of the practice of exam boards holding seminars in which they coach teachers on what (very specifically) they will be looking for?

[Itchyandscratchy]

Sorry Bunbaker - it's working ok for me?

[EdithWeston]

And has anyone released data about how many candidates received which grades? The article is currently citing anecdotal evidence from a couple of schools and it's not possible (yet) to say if their experience is representative.

[captainhastings]

There was a problem with English a Level as well, Lit I think .

[Itchyandscratchy]

Edithweston - that wasn't common practice in any way. The vast majority of schools can only guess the nature of the papers' contents, based on previous years.

The difference this year is that the grade boundaries for C grades was upped by 10% which is unprecedented. It will affect thousands of students.

[Itchyandscratchy]

Every school I've spoken to or heard about personally, on Twitter and TES have reported 10% drop in expected results: maybe about 20 schools so far. I've never known that before.

[EdithWeston]

All schools could choose to attend the seminars, and large numbers did. The extent of the practice was thoroughly bubbled in the press and it's wrong to try to portray the widespread practice as something less than that.

I was asking about national figures as I remember talking to teacher in the family this time last year about their maths results which had been much lower (at the C/D boundary) than expected. Although this happened in a number of vociferous schools, it wasn't a national trend. That's why I'm keen to see the full picture.

[Champneys]

captainHastings - yes DD got D for english AS level. Was gutted as A* in GCSE last year. She faired better than her friends who were also top grades last year but E and U this year. Most have given up and not going back. Which is very sad.

[Champneys]

Lit/Lang that was.

[EdithWeston]

Apologies: I've checked on the ban on seminars will not have taken effect in time to have had an impact on these results.

[MigratingCoconuts]

Edith...I'm a teacher and it wasn't widespread practise.

boringly, students generally get their excellent GCSe results through lots of hard work...but that makes for dull headlines, doesn't it!!!!

[EdithWeston]

I won't derail the thread further, as it is irrelevant this time round. But if you look at the published information about number of such seminars held, and typical attendance, and compare it to the number of secondary schools in England/Wales, then it is easy to see how very widespread it was.

This reinforces why I am interested in what the national picture of results, not just the first on-line reports from individual schools.

[MigratingCoconuts]

Not by me, it isn't.

[BringBack1996]

I've had a quick look on the AQA website, and for the papers that my DS sat there is only a few marks difference between this year's and last year's C grade boundary. I might be looking at the wrong thing, though.