OFQUAL have spoken.

By the way I am in England!

Looks like the Welsh Government are not in agreement with OFQUAL over the GCSE problems!
There is a thread on the TES website regarding the GCSE English Language for the WJEC board
community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/602378.aspx
WJEC Ordered to Re-Grade GCSE English Language (But Only in Wales)

This affects my DD1 - and I have just sent off for a remark and her paper back at a cost of approx £45!!!

agree absolutely riddles.

Having read the OFQUAL report and listened to the Select Committee interviewing OFQUAL officials, union leaders and school principals they all appear to agree that grades were inflated by the 5% students who took the controlled assessments in January and that the June units were relalistically marked.

To me the the only answer in the future is to have one exam board per subject, abolish controlled assessments and/or teacher marked coursework and maintain comparable standards in course content.

If the January controlled assessments were marked to leniently as it appears has been agreed by boards, schools and regulators, what are the schools now asking for?

Should the January units be remarked in the name of fairness to be fair to the students who submitted in June.

Or, should the government ask OFQUAL to allow massive grade inflation in the June English unit to placate schools and unions.

Or, should we stick with the June results which apparently according to all were the correct ones.

Whatever is decided, lets be honest with what is happening.

Also how can the Welsh papers be re-marked and not the English ones! Total farce!

And it rumbles on. Absolutely disgraceful. Definitely need an independent enquiry.

Letters to exam board leaked

Yellowtip I long to be more retentive!

Quite agree about the medical schools searching hard for those with the right personal qualities. Arrogant applicants with reams of A*s can get a shock when they fail to get in, having assumed that they'd walk it.

Just seen this! No Copthall I meant I was being retentive :) I don't think you read it as I intended. I thought it was fairly clear I meant me....

Coursework has finished in English and CA's have replaced this element.

Exploring a topic in detail with your teacher and then writing your argument/ creative response in controlled conditions allows the nervous type to also reach their potential. Polishing work rather than writing off the cuff is another skill needed by the big outside world.

O'levels allowed about 22% of the cohort to pass - Do we really want 80% to be seen as failures?

Yellowtip No I am not at all retentive! I think you might have to be if you were quibbling between getting into Imperial or UCL and KCL! Though undoubtedly you would have to congratulate anyone getting into Imperial and UCL would you really refuse to be treated by someone trained somewhere further down the tables? KCL probed quite deeply about the C at interview but they gained enough other evidence, to make an offer conditional on getting it to a A. One of DD's peers just started at Queen Mary's having not arrived at their ambition until Year 13 and having had to embark on Chemistry AS then, with the intention of finishing A2 in a gap year, but has been accepted with As in Biology, Maths and French at A2 and Chemistry at AS (and Music AS in Year 12!). Another peer has been accepted for postgrad medicine after deciding on it towards the end of a Psychology degree. Meanwhile there are others with 4 straight Science A*/A A2s who have had to compromise on related degrees, and keep trying again and again to transfer. The mixed fortunes of her cohort, my DD considers, shows that these medical schools are seeing through who is in it for the Kudos and status and who actually cares, has the necessary personal qualities and is game for the blood and guts and pooh.

amothersplaceis inthe wrong If coursework is done away with at GCSE then it will widen the gap between GCSE, and A Level and undergraduate study. There is clearly a lot that can be improved but in terms of giving employers and universities evidence of skills and ability the current GCSE is far more fit for purpose than O levels were, even for the 70s, and coursework is an important part of that. Gove needs to be talking to employers and universities about what they want not harking back to his rose tinted Daily Mail vision of the past or indeed trying to adopt an exam system that works in the confucian culture in Singapore which values rote learning and exams, over thinking skills and creativity.

Copthall KCL doesn't use the BMAT (I know, a little retentive to point that out). KCL is less competitive than Imperial or UCL though and perhaps the C was a blip, predicted to be pulled back up at A2.

Modular exams have already been scrapped in favour of exams at the end of the course only.

Not sure about getting rid of all forms of coursework, obviously it is a useful type of assessment for certain skills, especially in practical subjects.

Get rid of modular exams and all forms of coursework. Yes, bring back the old O level style exams at the end of two years, but give warning that this is what is happening - very unfair on this years cohort to change the rules half way through the game.

Of course it won't happen because the teaching standards would have to be upped too much and there isn't the money for it.

No, but I saw him on BBC Breakfast seemingly blaming this farce on Labour.

noblegiraffe You obviously didn't hear Gove on the Today progranme this morning. Terribly unfair on this years cohort, inappropraite but not my fault and I can't do anything about it..... except bring back O levels. He must think we were all born yesterday

everyone thought Y9 SATs were a bunch of arse for ages. What finally got them abolished? A marking fiasco.

" Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of the schools inspectorate Ofsted, called on the education secretary Michael Gove to use the row over this summer's GCSE results as a catalyst to examine whether the whole system is "credible enough"."

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/sep/02/gcses-thorough-overhaul-ofsted-chief

I am Jack's total lack of surprise.

glaurung As DD1 says she would have loved studying Medicine, it was just having to deal with patients that put her off! And yes the geek factor is high amongst her peers if only because, like the medics, their workload and contact hours are so high that normal partying and actually passing the years isn't an option, let alone get the first they all work so hard for (but then of course according to the rhetoric that's so much "easier" now too ). However tell your daughter not to think she has waved goodbye to essay writing just yet, the chances are where ever she studies there will be a Science Philosophy/ethics/policy course and these are increasingly mandatory. The first ethics essay was the first and last time DD1 has shown any stress in relation to academic work and was actually prepared to let me help (and concede I could)!

A change of school half way through GCSEs is certainly relevent.

copthall everyone thought Y9 SATs were a bunch of arse for ages. What finally got them abolished? A marking fiasco.

Thanks for that Copthall, reassuring to know. However it seems that the old people's pooh is what's put her off! Better to find that out now than later . She is a sciencey type, so hopefully will eventually find herself at home amongst other nerdy slightly illiterate types on a course that suits her (I am doing her down really - she's one of those who managed 100% on at least one other essay subject, so she can write, but just prefers not to).

She was at a selective school for most of year 11, but a non selective one before that, so quite where that puts her contextually I'm not sure. I'm actually enormously proud of her for doing as well as she has.

glaurung I should qualify that by saying DD1 was at a very selective school. I have no idea how they would change that A/A* policy to take account of pupils coming from schools that have poorer results. UCL are I know very good at achieving inclusivity so I am sure they must be prepared to relax the requirement. All the more important to make sure your daughter's sixth form college give the right contextual information. It is so frustrating when you get a pupil reference that just doesn't hang together, or where it is clear they don't know the pupil and you suspect there is more there than you have been told but demand is such that we can't chase up information or take risks with insufficient information.

To be fair noble giraffe their credibility was being questioned by employers and universities already. However change has to be effective, based on an understanding of the needs of employers and universities and benchmarking with best practise elsewhere in the world, not based on Gove's viewing of the past through rose tinted specs, prejudices, pet projects and 3 day trips on which he sees what he wants to see. His views on the Singapore education system are a source of amusement to the educational community there, he was expertly played by his hosts to their own ends!And certainly not based on giving a funny look to the Ofqual woman so she runs scared and hamfistedly meddles with everything at the last minute making it unfair and the results not worthy of trust.

glaurung So that explains DDs A* in Maths! It had to be the result of a fair wind! I think the thing about Science v. English Lit though is that it is less open to manipulation, an answer is either right or wrong. The Exams Officer was telling DDs friends that if any mark is likely to change on remark, in a normal year, it is English Lit, because however the mark scheme is developed there is still going to be an element of subjectivity. And every single one that has come back so far has been no change, that in itself says something is different this year.

Actually from the experiences of DD1s cohort, and they were the very competitive pre fees hike year, if there is a subjecs where you can get away with anomolous results it is medicine. They have far more evidence to go on than we have, BMAT/UCAT scores and a heavy emphasis on relevent extra curricular activities (although we have that too since we are not a subject studied in schools and we want to see genuine interest) and the personal qualities that will help with bedside manner. Having cleaned up old people's pooh will go a long way to make up for poor results. One of DD1s friend had a C in Chemistry AS but a very high BMAT and she is at Kings. On the other hand the good science courses DD1 was applying to did seem to place a heavy emphasis on A/A*s, especially Bath and UCL as well as Oxbridge.

My guess Copthall is that selective independent schools are a bit more affected because they are less likely to have done early entry. As far as I'm aware, most such schools sit all their exams at the end of year 11 so won't have had any protection of early banking under the more lenient system.

Thanks for the heads up on the competition - I will make sure dd's new sixth form is made aware of the closeness of her grades. I'm already aware that her Bs have ruled her out of applying for a fair number of medical schools which is indeed unfortunate should she want to pursue that career (I think she's changed her mind on that anyway).

It is interesting though that no fuss seems to be being made about the same thing in reverse happening in science. The early entry modules for the new science spec sat in November had ridiculously high boundaries and hardly anyone gained a C let alone higher. This summers results seem much more normal, but it's still tough luck on those who sat early and whose schools haven't offered a resit. The truth is, I think we've always had these anomolies - tough papers or whatever that means the exam system is never truly fair. This one has a higher profile I think due to the 5A*-C inc. maths+english school measure.

Just thought of another one actually - modular vs linear maths. Schools are finding results from linear are much higher than from modular (weaker lower set children who were switched to linear from modular after the first 1 or 2 modules have consistently outperformed their peers in the higher sets who have stuck with modular) yet that hasn't made the headlines. It too will penalise those children with lower maths grades than their less able compatriots, but it hasn't hit the headlines at all.

I'm beginning to think a single exam board per subject with a single exam might be a good way forward from this after all.

The credibility of GCSEs is completely undermined

How convenient at a time when Gove is looking to replace them.

He was going to replace them anyway, so why screw up the chances of the last couple of year groups to sit them?

Glaurung I have no idea why the most selective schools have found themselves particularly hit in particular subjects as it stated in the article I linked to. Maybe because the ability spread means that normally they wouldn't be getting Bs, the grade that is up. However as I say Wycombes experience is exactly matched at DDs school and at DDs school they do the IGCSE. If you look at theWycombe Abbey [http://www.wycombeabbey.com/academic-achievement/gcseresults.php website]] the English Literature results stick out like a sore thumb with 35% As whereas in almost all other subjects apart from English Language (significantly) and music (whiuch is consistently hard to get an A in) over 70% are getting A*, as they did in English Literature last year. It is quite clear that as private school Heads are saying along with all the other teachers that the goalposts have been moved unfairly for this cohort, and theresults are simply not reliable for those of us who have to judge applicants for uni.

I don't think you can have any idea of the complexity and level of competition in the application process. We recieve 100s of applications for our course, most of those will have English Literature GCSE at A or A*. A B in English Literature really would raise alarm bells because of the skills that are particularly important to do well on our course,unless the school provides us with contextual information that explains it (you would think of course that they would do so but the standard of some of the references we get have to be seen to be believed, and remember some sixth form colleges have thousands of students and may not even have realised a student was at the grade boundary for a particular subject and that it wasn't a fair reflection of their ability, let alone remebered it and thought to put it in a reference). We
have no way of knowing whether a candidate was only able to achieve a B or was within a couple of marks of the grade boundary and in the previous cohort would have got a A unless we are told by the school and it is certainly not common practise for them to give us detailed info on UMS marks. A lot of our UK applicants are on gap years, and others are mature students, so we may well be comparing an applicant with lots of others who sat GCSEs at different times. It is quite ridiculous that we are now going to factor into our considerations whether they sat the Gcse the year the goalposts moved and there were a lot of anomolous results. The credibility of GCSEs is completely undermined