To think the 2 tier GCSE system is wrong

The important thing is that it's the same qualification. If you put a grade 5 on your CV your employer doesn't know whether that was from a higher or lower tier paper. With CSEs there was a snobbish dismissal of the achievements of the pupils who took the lower tier and did well.

Decision can be made quite late. Can't remember actual date but you can switch tiers until quite near the exam date.
Most students will be obviously higher or foundation but middle sets can be a bit of both.

If a student has ended up in a lower set they may well have missed some higher work so swapping is not possible. Our set 3 get taught all the higher work but towards the end we will drop some down if they run the risk of falling off the bottom on the higher paper and they just sit the foundation paper.

I'm assuming your daughter is on the cusp otherwise they wouldn't be discussing with her.

Some level 5's do better on higher paper and some on foundation paper - depends on the individual. As a science teacher if good at maths, they might do better at higher paper as this is what can hold back students who don't like maths.
Dyslexics or those with weaker literacy - sit the foundation as the language used is more accessible.
But we often have a chat with the borderline students and take their opinion into account when deciding.

This was a thing when I did mine. Everyone who sat the higher paper got a GCSE. The teachers would discourage your kid from sitting the higher paper if they didn't think she was capable.

If they had only 1 paper then it would be ridiculously hard for half the kids. Lots would give up and end up completely failing.

It's not like English where less academic kids can have a stab at harder questions and end up still picking up a few marks.

I don't think it's wrong at all, though I would like to see 3 tiers rather than 2 so that there's a realistic option for those on the cusp.

There are a lot of pupils for whom a grade 5 would represent amazing success, to be celebrated, and a lot for whom realistically even grade 3 will be a struggle. I think it's brilliant that an exams exists that enables them to show their achievements even if they will need to retake to get a 4. But the questions needed to separate out the grade 3 candidate from the grade 4 candidate are massively inappropriate for the pupils who are aiming for a grade 8 or 9 and vice versa. All the exams should be pitched at the right level to quicky establish firstly whether or not the candidate has thr basic skills for the lowest awardable grade and then have more challenging questions to identify which candidates belong in thr highest grades. The subjects that have tiered papers are the ones where it's simply not practical to have a single paper that adequately sorts candidates across the whole 9 grade point range while having a coherent mark scheme and not wasting time on inappropriate questions. It would be unworkable. The exam would have to be significantly longer to give all candidates time to cover both lower tier and higher tier questions but it would be impossible to fairly judge between the grade 3/4 candidates that spend the whole duration being really paistaking and perfectionist about the basic questions while ignoring the more complex questions, vs one of a similar ability level who attempts some of the harder questions while being less careful with the basic ones.

I do sympathise with your dilemma and I think the choice would be easier if there was a paper A with possible grades 1-4, paper B with possible grades 3-7 or paper C with possible grades 6-9.

However it should be possible if the teacher has been doing their job to know whether a grade 5 represents what they can manage on their best day or represents them letting themselves down as they can achieve so much more. The key question is, if on results day she gets a grade 5 would her reaction be - "that's great, I passed and I don't have to study that any more"?, or would she feel disappointed and likely to want to retake it? Is it a subject she needs 6+ in?

My daughter is doing a mix of some higher and some foundation and to be honest the relief is huge. Some children just aren’t as academic and with no plans to keep the Foundation ones on for A level I will just be delighted if she passes them all- she is doing 10.

This was true in 1994, for maths and sciences at least.

I guess those who are in that cusp need to decide if they are going to really push themselves and work towards a higher grade or coast and do the basic paper.
such is life.

The final tiering decisions don’t need to be made until April-ish. Even then, you can change just before the exam, but it costs a lot. I have this conversation a lot with students and parents. The guidance from the exam boards is that there is no point in doing the higher paper unless you have a good chance of getting a 6.

A solid 4/5 student in science will be able to score about 65% on the foundation paper. The same student on the higher paper will score about 25%. That would be a very unpleasant exam to sit. They would stand no chance against the grade 8/9 questions, so it’s much better to sit a paper they can fully access.

It's only maths, science and languages that have foundation and higher tiers. We were told today by our exam secretary that we can make tier level entry changes (for languages anyway) right up until 21 April. You can get a grade 3 on higher tier but the grade boundary is maybe only 3-5 marks wide. So very very narrow. Got my subject, if they are a solid 5/nearly 6 on higher papers they stay on higher. Leave the door open for grade 6 or above. Scraping a 5 or getting a 4 on higher tier - recommend to do foundation to 'guarantee' a 5, rather than run the risk of a U. Hate it. Horrible decisions to make.

We were told by the maths teacher that children had to be a solid 6 to be entered for the higher maths paper because around 50% of it was aimed at differentiating the grades 7,8s and 9s. It would mean a child at a grade 6 wouldn't be able to do half the paper which can be absolutely soul destroying turning pages and not knowing how to tackle the question.

If the school has February mocks then a child's performance in that is usually taken into consideration for which paper to enter them for.

this was the case when I did my gcse’s in 1993- certainly for maths, science and language subjects.

It’s always been like this and rightly so. It’s ridiculous to suggest that a level 4 child should be sitting a paper designed for level 9 students, they are poles apart.
Far from being‘unfair’ it’s trying to make things fairer. Download past papers and see for yourself.

You can get 3 in Higher in Maths, you can’t get 1 and 2 only.

It does seem odd that they did away with the old O Level v CSE system with one exam sat by everyone (GCSE) to then stealthily reintroduce the two exam system by another name.

This is why the intermediate paper needs to make a return.

Maybe somebody who is good at statistics can answer this.
As grades 4/5 will presumably be around the mean in a normal distribution curve, does it follow that there will be more questions aimed at around this level, so the likelihood of significantly over or underperforming in the middle of the grade range is reduced?
(I am crap at maths myself, and sat the lower tier GCSE, so please enlighten me if this question is a load of bollocks!!)

My DC is the same, on the borderline and had been in a higher paper maths set until just before Xmas. After discussion between me, him and his teacher he's been moved to a foundation paper set. Confidence wise and enjoyment of school wise, he is so much happier as he actually understands the maths lessons now and is doing well. Scraping by in the higher class was not good for him and I'd rather he had a good broad understanding of basic maths than knowing some harder bits which possibly squeezes out a higher grade. Hopefully he'll get the 5 he needs now...

I had some exams where everyone did the foundation and then you did one or both of the two higher papers if it was likely to be worth it. So no one fell off the bottom. Yes, it meant more volume of exam, but the brighter end probably aren't having to work too hard on the foundation paper.

Weren't GCSE's a merger of GCE O levels and CSE? There have always been 2 levels of attainment, with a degree of overlap in the middle. In my day, a CSE grade 1 was worth a grade 'C' O level. So what's changed?

This isn’t true for all subjects / boards. I have seen grades 2 and 3 on GGSE certificates for last year (AQA)

There is an overlap to account for pupils who underperform, but if a pupil underperforms by two or more grades I’d guess they’d probably want to re-sit anyway, so it makes little odds whether the pupil with grade 5 ability gets a 2 or a U?