OFQUAL have spoken.

GCSEs are supposed to be criterion-referenced. A piece of work is supposed to be a C grade no matter how many students produce work of the same quality.

Therefore it shouldn't matter that fewer people sat the exam in January, the exam board should be able to look at a piece of work and say 'that's a C grade'.

We've got the situation in maths where the C grade boundary on the Higher tier module 3 for OCR is 56%. Only 50% of the paper is C grade and below questions so to get a C on this module you needed to do better than C grade work. It's clear here too that OCR went 'bugger, pass rates are going to go up, Gove will be pissed off' and manipulated the final module grade boundary beyond what makes any sense in terms of criterion-referenced grading to make C-grade candidates fail in order to make pass rates fall.

So, I would like to see the evidence that work submitted in January to AQA that got a C grade was actually D grade work (as seems to be suggested) and that the boundaries didn't change simply to fiddle the pass rate.

Sorry, I'd not realised CA add upto so many marks.

Utterly unfair to change the grades mid year.

I guess it will all end up in court.

Back for good. Having been both an employer, involved with graduate recruitment, and now back at uni and involved (but thank god, not responsible for ) admissions then what you want is to be able to compare candidates, whatever year they sat the exams. In both roles I had/ have to consider applications from students who sat these exams at different times and be able to compare. It would be ridiculous to expect unis, let alone employers, to somehow weight results according to what year they were taken. Currently exam marking is criterian based, so in theory, you have an absolute objective judgement based on how that candidate performed against a mark scheme, rather than a relative one. I think my O levels did have a relative mark scheme but then it mattered diddly squat whether I got a 1, 3 or 5 and I got into a RG uni to read History based on my 5 O levels, 2 1s, a 4 in English, and 2 5s, with a retake in French and BBD at A level (more than happy to concede they were crap results but I did get to queae overnight to see Led Zeppelin, not to mention seeing Bowie as Ziggy Sardust and still met my BC offer!!!!) and I got a 2.1, which obviously would now be a 1st because of grade inflation (really? when none of us ever left the bar early, and you could still get away with getting your head down a month ahead of finals and suddenly realise how fascinating your subject was, I am finally indulging that interest now!!)Results then just didn't need to discriminate so much that these fine differences between cohorts and exams sat, actually mattered

The reality that anyone involved in the teaching profession at whatever level appreciates is that students work harder and teachers are getting much better at teaching them to pass exams and that has led to results inflating year on year. That is not to say that the current system is fit for purpose, clearly not if the students are emerging without the skills and abilties unis and employers want to see and unis are struggling to identify the brightest pupils. I certainly haven't enjoyed seeing my daughters "education" sacrificed once they reach Year 10 to them being trained like racehorses to pass the A* winning post ( and having to be the one that still inspires them to love and understand their chosen subjects in their widest sense ). However you don't address that by moving the goalposts in the existing system so noone knows whether a A one year is a B the next or worst of all that candidate who appears not to have a GCSE English would have had last year, or vice versa.

As a historian it is quite clear to me that Gove will be judged by posterity as one of those "conservatives" (v. small c) that tried to impose his own perception of an idealised past on others.

And I am sure you would not be happy if your child got an E because he happened to be in a very bright year. No employers would be interested in excuses that he happened to be from the 'notably excellent' class of 2012!

Back for Good That is one of the most ridiculous posts I have ever read on mumsnet (and that is saying something).

So if everyone in a year is weaker than the year above some average students will get A*?

You do realise that in life you are often not competing against people who are in the same year as you. Merely knowing how good someone was within their cohort is not useful for the majority of situations.

I actually agree with Less on P1.
Oh, and my ds did take his GCSEs this year, so I am involved in some ways.
There is absolutely no point in having exams, if it doesn't clearly differentiate (for employers and FE), who, in that year, are the top 10%, the next 10%, etc. Even if all children are somehow magically cleverer year on year (stick with me), what we really want to know is which are the finest minds available at the time.
To me, it's a bit like athletes. If you are unlucky enough to be a very fast sprinter over the last 4 years or so, you know there is always one man faster than you. You know you are not the fastest, but that had you been born 5 years earlier, you might have stood a chance at Gold in the Olympics or World Championships or wherever. As it is, you happened to be born at the same time as Mr Bolt, so you will be competing for the Silver every time. I liken that to the way exams are graded. In many ways, it's not important how many As or Bs or Cs there are each year, but it is important that it is clear which are the most academically able, in the cohort applying at that time. It's irrelevant in a way if they are more or less able than those who took exams 20 years before or after them, surely ?

Apologies I meant starting in 2010.

NI Education Minister has ordered a different review of the issue. It will be interesting to see it comes to the same conclusion.

longing - The entire spec changed for students starting Year 10 in 2011.

Yes lurcher June was the 4th time the exam had been done.

It's bollocks. Candidates sat the exam in 2011.

It says on the Ofqual link that one of the problems with January was that "because the exam was a new qualification examiners could not rely so much on direct comparisons with the past".

It has nothing to do with the examiners. They give a mark to a component but have no idea where the mark boundaries will lie. That is decided later.

But the fact remains that in June 2011 the pass mark was 44. In Jan 2012 it was 43. In June 2012 it was 53. How, then, is January the anomaly, and not June?

I'm ashamed to have to ask this question (especially as one son did AQA English last year and another is doing it next year) but if the problem is that in January examiners were having to get their heads round a new system/course, what exactly has changed?

Did anyone think like me they were really saying:
Been a cock-up but we can't admit it because we are responsible for exams and can't be seen to make such a huge blunder!

It is clear that exam boards were not concerned with the exams in January it was just that pupils did so well in June. This in part is down to clear focused teaching and a huge amount of work plus pupils who are all concerned about the current economic climae. I have never known such a dedicated cohort, so many have parents who have recently lost jobs/hours/bonuses.
I am also furious that the exam boards will profit from this, every appeal/retake costs so more profit to them.

funny
where I live the worst performing school IS a sponsored academy - that has not turned around in the last four years - no idea what they will try next other than abolishing Parental Choice

starballbunny Because it is not one CA. It is 60% of the qualification.

Knowsabitabouteducation The boundaries given in January for CA were the same as June 2011 and Jan 2011. How can you justify the boundaries on CA changing?

For goodness sake, you are happy to have the lower, robust, grade revoked, but not the higher anomalous one!

Double standard?

Why not just bin the contested CA and give the DCs a grade for the rest of the exam?

Then in slower time gently over a few years tighten up the English grades.

I believe employers and collages do complain about literacy standards and that many people feel a overhaul is long over due. This was not how to start it.

Mind you I have two grade A English O'levels and my posts are riddled with errors

I don't think revoking a published grade is a realistic solution. That would also be really unfair.

How about January results getting downgraded?

I haven't got a major problem with the exam boundaries changing (although it definitely seems to be have been harder to get a C in June) but I genuinely don't understand how they can change the controlled assessment boundaries.

If a piece is worth 17 and 17 is a C then how can they suddenly say a 17 is a D? The piece has not got worse, it is exactly the same piece of work. If it meets the requirements of a C in January it doesn't suddenly not meet the requirements 5 months later. This is the issue they need to be sorting out. The boundaries need to be fixed as they used to be. If they are fixed at a higher standard than in previous years then so be it but they have to be fixed.

I think the issue, with AQA is, as a Head of English, the following:
Last June you needed 44/80 on the exam to get a C. In January you needed 43/80. I very carefully read the exam report from both AQA and OFQUAL and both said the exam was 'challenging' and 'accurate'. in addition the foundation paper had a required reading age of 5 months older. So to change to 53/80 without warning is unreasonable. In addition the Controlled Assessments and Speaking and Listening tasks were identical so how dare they raise the grade boundaries within an academic year. It is clear and obvious political machination, I would have accepted the changes if we had been informed there was an issue with the January series but instead they decided to make a political football of children. As a teacher I am not upset my record is damaged but I have taught and cared about these pupils for 5 years and seeing their faces was awful so goodness know how their parents' feel. AQA attacked the C/D borderline on the Foundation paper unfairly and this is where the weakest pupils are. Cruel and wrong.

There's no evidence for the converse either.

The evidence they are using is matching up performance criteria from June 2011 to June 2012.

Fewer high performing candidates in general and the profile of January candidates are hypotheses used to attempt to explain the anomalous January results, and slight fall from June 2011 to June 2012. These seem, at first sight, very plausible explanations.

If they had the desire to test these hypotheses, it would be that hard to provide the data, despite the large number of confounding variables.

There seems to be a high level of speculation in their 'comparable outcomes' calculations.

1. The presumption that independent school students have higher key stage 2 results. Well round here, the indies don't sit SATS.

2. They seem to suggest students entered early have lower SATS results.

There are, of course, no references to back up these claims.