Are you prepared for exam results to fall?

Hi I live in Wales and following a parents evening we were told by the Geog teacher that the course would still be modular. So I did a little investigating on the WJEC exam site and discovered that schools in Wales have the choice to carry on with modular courses or use the linear course- which they are developing for English schools who use their exams. So our school is staying with the modular course.
Just how is that going to pan out with England and Wales having different systems, surely it's going to a nightmare!

It's not all grade inflation.

Modules, controlled assessments, children more aware of their need to get good qualifications for life and better teaching all add to the ability of students to do better. Apart from 'well, I had to do 'orrible linear exams and, therefore, so should you', I haven't seen any good arguments against these. We had to wash clothes in twin-tubs but don't expect our children to do the same.

Obviously, exam training exposes, league table internal pressures, coursework problems and some other things are inflationary causes which should be stopped.

I also disagree with 'constant resits' - but, although it seems to be an argument of Gove's, it seems a myth to me. My daughter has already sat 7 Science modules so far and will resit 1, in June and with no time for further classroom study of it. Even if she resat all 7, I can't see where the time is supposed to come from for 'constant' resits. All I see, in reality, is the chance for one re-sit and that's without teacher guidance - so, it covers them for a bad day on the first sitting but requires a lot of personal input to put right - surely this is a good skill?

I'm not against adjustment but going back to the dark ages and learning absolutely nothing from what we have been through - that is purely ignorant.

The same here tranquil I kept my old prospectus. The grade inflation between 1990 and today is appalling.

Employers don't have the time to rank applicants on school year! Half the CVs don't advise when an exam was sat anyway (at the filtering of CV stage). Many employers won't even really know - they are busy getting on with whatever they do to make the business work.

More movement is the last thing I need! A new name or stability or our current students are going to be in a much more difficult position for employment (Unis will have a lot more ability to get around it with mainly ranking peers and UCAS forms and exam information which can probably take account electronically of the differences in year group expectations).

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Grade inflation helps no-one. It doesn't help the children, some of whom will be affronted that their talent isn't being recognised, and others who then have unrealistic expectations. It doesn't help universities, some of whom are now having to do entrance exams to sort out the sheep from the goats. Most of all it doesn't help employers, who have to go through numerous hoops just to work out who actually has any brains amongst the graduates all of whom now come equipped with a 2:i, AAB or better at A level and the obligatory 10 GCSEs grades A*-B.

The exam boards are already indicating that shift for this year. The exam board's own exemplar material don't meet their revised grade/band criteria and we can see in examiner's feedback and meetings that they are moving the goalposts. Level descriptors used to describe A* is now a necessary requirement for B/A.

English Literature's % of A/A grades nosedived nationally last year but went under the radar as it's English Language that counts as the 5A-C in the league tables. That, and the unwieldy controlled assessment open to so much abuse, means more schools are swapping to iGCSE.

Will be an interesting time as a decrease in exam results can trigger an Ofsted, and a school deemed once successful is suddenly not.

Something has to change as we can't go on getting higher and higher grades every year but I do feel sorry for the children involved. The educational establishment have a lot to answer for in having allowed this grade inflation to occur for their own political reasons.

When I went to uni my offer was BCC, the same course is now needing AAA, I don't believe students today are that much cleverer than we were so things have to stop somewhere.

The foundation paper at Grade C is a good level of real life Maths. I've just been through it helping my daughter revise and to get a C at the 70% she needed it was necessary to have a really good understanding across the syllabus. I suspect children always make some silly errors on a Maths paper and there will be a couple of questions they don't understand, so apart from that you really need to be nailing the rest and they do test a broad range of the syllabus.

The reason children with Cs can't do percentages when employed is either 1. It was the bit of Maths which eluded them or 2. They've forgotten! Quite likely the latter. It's important whatever grade you get you use Maths in real life or that will happen.

Slightly on a tangent but on the topic of GCSE reforms .... some children who can't get C grade in maths are very able in other subjects. Do you think there should be a route for them to go to uni without the C grade but maybe having demonstrated they can do arithmetic, %s etc? I know a couple of people who got into respected unis without the GCSE maths at grade C (not quite sure how I must admit) and did really well in their disciplines.

I like the idea of a new name for the new exam system. I said before, as an employer, I want stability. A rapid adjustment downwards would be fine if that was then the stable level going forward and a new name used so employers know when we are not ranking peers.

As mum of a Y8 boy I'm watching with interest. There is time to decide but I am seriously thinking about offering him the choice to HE and do iGCSEs.

In fact I've just read that OFqual have said that the other change to the GCSEs, the separate marking of grammar, punctuation and spelling, will be applied to candidates who are already studying towards their GCSEs, so that will not hit pupils who are in year nine first.

It does seem that these changes are being staggered over a few years, with changes announced all the way through from pupils sitting this summer through to pupils sitting in 2017. It is not just going to hit one year group alone.