Maths GCSE Edexcel vs AQA

[Sunnystars]

My dd is year 10, they were told in maths yesterday that the school are moving from Edexcel to AQA in September.

Is there much difference in content?

Her entire group were moved from the higher to foundation as a 'precaution' before the pass rate was announce as a 4.

[Noodledoodledoo]

Subtle differences - content the same but AQA feels like the questions are more straight forward to answer. I mark for AQA but my school uses Edexcel for exams. Having looked at both Paper 2's this year I know which board I would have prefered to be sitting - AQA.

There has been a big move from higher to foundation this year - my school has 10 sets (240 kids) and normally the bottom two/three would put students in for foundation so about a maximum of 50 students. This year we have about 120 students doing foundation.

[Witchend]

Edexcel seemed to be much harder this year.
It may mean that AQA is harder next year though.

[grufallosfriend]

Do the GCSE results show which exam boards were used?

I'm wondering how comparable the results are with so many different exam boards and exam types (foundation, higher etc)..

[BeyondThePage]

Each board will set its own grade boundaries, so there should not be any problems with whichever board being harder.

Edexcel was a little more badly worded this year than AQA I think, but the problems set were much of a muchness on difficulty (except the rogue Edexcel final question on paper 1) - paper 3 seemed very even between them.

[TeenAndTween]

Do the GCSE results show which exam boards were used?

Depends what you mean by your question.
School statistics don't mention the boards used.

Individual certificates do say the board as they get a certificate per board. No one will care in later life which board someone did, or remember which one was 'hard' and which 'easy'. You don't need to say which board on application forms, nor say whether you took foundation or higher tier.

[Sunnystars]

Thanks for your answers.

Good to know that there is not a significant difference between the exam boards.
It makes sense if the AQA questions are worded in a more 'user friendly' way.
Currently, anyway.

Is it an unusual move to change exam boards half way through the course?

[pointythings]

The impression I get is that Edexcel this year had the kind of wordy trying-to-trip-you-up questions that disadvantage good youung mathematicians, whereas AQA had hard, honest maths. Was glad DD1's school did AQA.

[teddygirlonce]

DS's school, which has some quite brilliant Mathmos in the top set (and specialises in the subject), does Edexcel (but mainly AQA for other subjects), so I would assume that would suggest it's chosen for being most challenging to the super-bright? DS's school is one where the boys are educated to think 'above and beyond' in all aspects of their learning.

Interestingly, we were discussing the issue of perceived hierarchy of exam boards at DC2's sports day only this week. Is this an urban myth or is there some truth to it, do you think? I suspect the latter.

[Sunnystars]

That's a very interesting point @teddygirlonce.

I've just been looking down the exam boards listed for dd's subjects and virtually all are AQA with the exception of maths, history and science.

Dd has always been good at history and perhaps more importantly enjoyed it. This year she seems to be struggling and in her end of year exam was marked at an estimated 2, maths was a 3 and science we don't have the results until August, although her teacher is pleased with her progress this year.
These levels are way below where she is estimated to be working at in AQA subjects, 4's and 5's.

It would be interesting to see if anyone else has found the same or if it is just a coincidence with my dd.

[noblegiraffe]

Edexcel are the most popular exam board for maths GCSE (by some way I think). The support they offer is excellent (Graham, their guy in charge of GCSE maths is amazing), they have lots of good resources and the results-plus service is very useful. Edexcel also offered a national mock in November where schools submitted their marks for data analysis to get an idea of grade boundaries. I think a lot of schools went with Edexcel for the new GCSE for those reasons.
Unfortunately the Edexcel papers were very difficult and this has caused problems for lots of students. Looking at the AQA papers, they do appear easier. The style is cleaner, some are multiple choice (for no reason other than to save money on markers, Edexcel did a multiple choice paper a few years back but scrapped it because mathematically it didn't work). The questions do appear to be less wordy and more straightforward - the trig question even says 'use trigonometry to find x'. Now this will absolutely affect raw results but the grade boundaries will be set so that similar pupils will get similar grades regardless of which board they sat, using KS2 results to compare. AQA's grade boundaries will be higher. Switching exam boards at this point is a little premature, it would be better to wait till August when the grade boundaries come out to get the full picture of how each board compares. If Edexcel papers are difficult but you only need 50% to pass, AQA papers are easier but you need 70% to pass (numbers completely made up), then you have to take that into consideration. My school, for example, had most success for GCSE resit kids putting them in for a harder paper with lower grade boundaries, as they could afford more silly mistakes.

[noblegiraffe]

Any grades given for Y10 exams will be totally made-up. No one knows where the grade boundaries will be.

[portico]

Hi noblegiraffe

I hope all is well. I have been following the EdExcel maths gcse on Twitter, and yes it appears hard. I think Maths is the only subject where there are no decent textbooks or assessment books to find. The questions in the exam seem to be a significantly big jump from those posed in the books.

I have used quite a lot of true resources on the Ed Excel website, e.g., the topic tests, and they are useful practise.

I feel sorry for the students who took the exams, and am anxious to see the grade boundaries in august. I wonder if maths grade boundaries in Aug 2017 and Aug 2018 will be markedly different.

[Violetcharlotte]

DS1 did AQA this year when he re sat gcse maths at college. Much preferred it to ed Excel.

[noblegiraffe]

My school does Edexcel for GCSE, OCR for resits and AQA for further maths

That a school is moving from Edexcel to AQA presumably because the papers appear to be easier is going to be a big headache for Ofqual because we've already been through all this 2 years ago. www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/too-tough-maths-gcse-papers-be-rewritten Exam boards except AQA were told to scrap their sample assessment materials and start from scratch because they were too difficult. This was in response to complaints that AQA was stealing other exam boards' custom due to their sample papers being too easy. In the article it says that Ofqual, in an unprecendented move, will have scrutinised the actual exam papers that were sat this year, before they were sat, in order to check that they were of a comparable level of difficulty. If they're not, then questions will be asked!

[noblegiraffe]

I wonder if maths grade boundaries in Aug 2017 and Aug 2018 will be markedly different.

Grade boundaries always differ between years as it's not possible to write papers of uniform difficulty. There's also something called the 'sawtooth effect' which means that pupils perform badly in the first year of a new specification due to unfamiliarity, then this improves gradually over the next couple of years until attainment is roughly back where it should be. Grade boundaries will give a ballpark figure for the next few years but shouldn't be taken as gospel!