Advice needed re Year 9 ds being put in too early for GCSE science

suec4075 the exam board websites have information on the changes but I think that if your DS is taking the final exams in 2014 then he has to take the new exams. His previous exams only count if the qualification is finished in 2013.

www.ocr.org.uk/images/71509-gcse-science-the-move-to-linear-specifications.pdf

"These changes will affect all candidates starting two year courses in September 2012. This change does not affect candidates who started a two-year course in September 2011, or those starting a one-year course in September 2012. However, Year 9 students who started a three-year course in September 2011 will be affected."

Can anyone tell me whether it is true that those children that sat their GCSE triple science early (my son is currently year 10) will not finish the final units (7 & 8) but instead sit 3 exams per subject plus practicals for each subject in year 11 (June 2014) and that those units they have already done don't count for anything? Because if that is true my son will have wasted nearly two years having already gained A's, B's and one C in units 1-6 in Biology, Physics & Chemistry. His School don't seem to know what is going on as each week we are told something different!!

Every year the local High School & college publish pictures of their very highest achievers, the ones who get all As/A*s (GCSE) or who get (provisional) acceptances to Oxbridge.

The impression I get is that in both photos, the ratio of girls:boys is 3.5:1.
Maybe the boys are just camera shy.

DS art teacher (male) said that he has never had a boy get above an A at GCSE art, too.

I think one of the big differences with the summer exams only is that you can't take them early and then retake them and choose the higher mark. Often DC took the exams in the Jan, then again in the June. They can still take them a year early, but then can't bank this result and take them again, hoping for a higher grade.

If I remember rightly from my school days - the girls all worked hard and did well at o level, then relaxed a bit and did relatively less well at A-level, whereas the boys mostly screwed up their o levels (through lack of work), scraped into doing a levels then knuckled down and did well with their a levels. So maybe that is the same process as you describe.

I have 3 boys - I can see it is goign to be fun getting them to get on with studying.

The theory with boys vs girls is actually kind of as lljkk describes her children. Girls work hard consistently and so benefit from coursework and modular work. In situations where there is just one final exam, they are more likely to play safe, hence getting good but not outstanding marks.
Boys are lazy and so leave everything to the last possible minute. They don't pay as much attention to coursework and prefer to do sudden last minute revision. Therefore they either crash and burn or take more risks on answers - so you get boys scoring more at both top and bottom ends of the scale.

That's the theory, don't bite my head off for the blatant stereotyping everyone!

The firm change is to the modules I think. All will have to be sat at the end, but they are not reducing the number of them. As I understand the system, this will have a big effect on the sciences in particular.

Ah, so (I should have kept my mouth shut on entire thread?) our schools will probably keep current programme but with no January entries. This might be good thing because of the variation in exam board marking (this year) between Jan & June exam entries. At least schools can't get caught out in that way, again.

As far as I know there is no plans to ban early entry. The only restriction is that exams will be in the summer series (apart from English & Maths I think)

So schools will still be able to enter students in years 9 & 10 (or even earlier!)

Creamteas says that early entry will still be possible? So are firm strict changes being imposed from above or not?

By the way, I don't think she would have benefitted from early entry. I think she may have benefitted from longer exams - the Latin ones were 4 x 45 mins for example and History was also chunked up into 3 exams I think, so they seemed to go on for ever.

I agree that the young are forced to do too many subjects, 8 or 9 should be the max as it was in my day. In my elder DD's school she had to do English lang/English Lit, maths, all 3 sciences, one humanity, one IT subject, one MFL. She had to do two more and did Art and Latin. Thankfully the school saw sense and made statistics optional in her year (now dropped altogether). She could easier have done without art and IT for example.

She did them all in the summer of year 11, apart from the paper 1 in the sciences which they sat in the January and components of English were spread over two years. The school is a so called super-selective.

Unfortunately under the current changes I think Schools will be forced to either cut down on the subjects or use early entry more.

When I was at school the 'norm' was 8 subjects at O level and most had 2 papers at the end so about 16 papers sat in total. At my school we had early entry for English Langauge and Maths (sat in Nov year 11) to try to spread them out a bit

Currently many DC are taking 10-12 GCSEs, and even if all of those had just 2 papers that is 20-24 papers in one exam session. The sudden change pushed through by Gove to only allow terminal exams has meant no time to change the curriculum so GCSEs designed for modular assessment now just have their exams at the end.

So either we need to stop Dc studying so many subjects (and many MN comments scorn at taking less than this, with unfounded warnings that universities will look down on such candidates) or accept that early entry is a way to cope.

You don't know my DD . She might turn anorexic under the huge final stress, but she'll apply self-discipline all the way thru.

Meantime, the boys will turn out a minimum standard of work and barely pay attention until the last minute when they truly accept & agree it matters. Then they'll be so overwhelmed with the deficits in their knowledge in so many areas that they won't think they can do it, so easier to just give up and go into the Army instead.

mercibucket - that is the reason commonly given for girls doing consistently better than boys in the UK education system over the last 20 years or so.

I would be interested to know the psychology behind it.

In general, girls do better under a system of continuous assessment and boys do better under an 'all or nothing' final exam system, so I'd worry more about your dd than your ds under the new system, lljkk

That's interesting what Webfizz said: because I specifically asked when touring secondaries for DD 2 months ago about how do they schedule GCSEs. Nobody said the schedule would be changing for her year group, but maybe the plans weren't confirmed, then.

I'm glad you guys have so much positive to say about what I consider a loony system. Since it seems like we won't have any choice about it. At least before there was an element of choice.

I think most people, and certainly modern teens, are more motivated by extrinsic rewards than learning for the sake of learning.

I have no doubt that DSs will have a poorer learning experience & poorer results under the (now confirmed and definite??) changes. DD was always going to learn for learning's sake, anyway.

kids have completely lost the point that you just sometimes "learn" things at school and you shouldn't have to have the push of an exam to make you focus.

that is the fundamental point. I am sure when I was at school (grammar school in the early 80s) we didn't think about O level exams until maybe the 5th year. For the first 3 years we did the subjects we all did. Year 4 we got to choose the ones we liked (or were best at) for O level (or drop the ones we hated). I don't remember exams being that big an issue. We did have end of year exams every year which tested what we had learnt that year. The emphasis was on learning - not on the final exam at the end.

If schools are now so focussed on the final exam haul for each child, and the actual value of learning is lost along the way then we have a very bad system.

School as I remember it was a mix of putting up with those subjects you didn't enjoy and looking forward to those you did enjoy - all in the same week. If I had been forced to have 5 hours of RE a week, and only be allowed to study a language for a year (albeit intensively) I would have hated it. I don't see that that system would be right for more than a very small minority.

Whatever happend to the aspiration of a "rounded education". You don't need to have exams to prove it if you produced people who patently have a rounded education.

DD is in yr 9 and the school have made it clear that she will not be entered early for her GCSEs unless (1) She is ready and wants to (2) We want her to and (3) The school think she is going to get the best result she would be able to get. She has started ICT, Maths, English and Science.

Actually lljkk the changes apply to the current year 10s so exams taken after 2013.

I think your posts illustrates absolutely everything that is wrong with so much focus on exams - kids have completely lost the point that you just sometimes "learn" things at school and you shouldn't have to have the push of an exam to make you focus.

My DCs experience is similar to mine (apart from the relentless intrusion of controlled assessments) which is a gradual building of skills over 5 years, you do your homework, you do class tests and then at the end when you are old enough to get that the exams are important you revise and prepare for them. Then if you want to take a subject to A level you have a solid foundation of knowledge to build on.

At the moment my 13 year old daughter has one and a quarter hours of Spanish, 4 times a week and one and a quarter hours of RE 4 times a week because she HAS to do GCSEs in both this year - year 9.

She has no interest in RE but the GCSE is compulsory in her school in year 9 - it is not a religious school. She does the core subjects of English, Maths and Science.

She does no music, DT art, drama, history or Geography because those options are not open to her in year 9. If she wants to do them she will do them as one year courses similar to the RE and Spanish she is doing now.

I do not consider this a rounded education, it seems to reduce most subjects to doing a short course which is completely taught to the exam. Of course secondary education is about passing exams (and by the way my elder DD did all her exams in year 11 and got all A* and A), but surely it is about balance on the way, not just tick boxes.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, EllenJane. That is pretty much how I thought it all worked.

I think the new all final exams at the end system isn't due to come in until at earliers for Sept. 2013 starters, if it comes in at all. And I hate it. If I could find activist parents I'd be camping somewhere to protest against the change to the system most of you prefer.

Something I like about the focus on getting GCSE options out of the way early is that it means immersed teaching instead of a scattergun approach. So they get a proper strong foundation, intense focus, rather than dribs and drabs of teaching over several years. Which is poorly retained & never makes any of it seem important. Until the end (maybe).

If my teens are like I was (& my peers) they will have up and down times. Unpredictably. They might be more focused & diligent at 13-14 than at 15-16 (or any other age). So get a better result if completing the GCSE at 13-14. By spreading exams out the risk of that is somewhat reduced, it's not like they HAVE to be on the ball at age 15-16, and particularly focused in April-June of year 11. If they have a crisis in personal life at that point, at least they could have some GCSEs in the bank from earlier years.

DS hates languages. He should be good at them (DS excels at English & DH & I are reasonably proficient at languages). But the scattergun approach (4 lessons in French & 2 in German every fortnight) confuses him. Near daily lessons would make him focus & actually get the hang of one of the languages. He'd have a definite target to work towards and focus on, grit his teeth about learning for just one year, it even if he didn't enjoy.

Could say the same for DS attitude towards several other core subjects.

If the exam only mattered at end of y11 he'd doss about & not give a toss until last minute (after all, homework is meaningless). So he'd end up getting a worse result.

People on MN are so bloody obsessed about their DC getting results that "top universities" want. Like any other path in life is written off. And then admin officers for those "top unis" come on to explain the considerations they make are actually quite nuanced, after all. Plus the plethora of MNers who find their kids aren't getting those top results after all, even in the all-end-exam system.

Frankin, I'd agree that early Eng Lit seems completely counter intuitive.

With the sciences, I think it's a bit different. My DS is in Y10 and is doing triple science as far as I understand, single combined science, one GCSE worth, is P1 (Physics), C1 (Chem) and B1 (Bio). Your grade would be eg, A or B etc. Double science, which is combined plus additional usually, two GCSEs worth, is P1, P2, C1, C2, B1 and B2. Grades are A/A or A/A etc. Triple science is P1, P2, P3, C1, C2, C3, B1, B2 and B3. Counts as 3 GCSEs, one each in Physics, maybe grade A, Chemistry, maybe grade B and Biology, maybe A*. So doing the single science this year is just doing the 1st modules in each science. By the end of Y11 he'll have taken all the modules and will have 3 individual GCSEs.

But, at some point soon, taking these GCSE exams separately over a few years will not be allowed and all the exams, all 9 modules in triple science, will have to be taken at one time, not allowing you to bank the previous results to be added together. I would find out whether this single combined science GCSE will count towards his triple science GCSEs or whether he'll have to take those modules again. Which would be a waste of time...