2014 GCSE league tables

Hmmm, good question.

Actual exam results - all exams, whether passed or failed.
Numbers of students in each year group and clear data on how many are not entered for exams and how many leave at the start of Y11 and Y13

one of my bugbears with selective schools is their propensity for tidying up results before the entry closing date

Cohort information : FSM, EFL, % who finish the school having attended right through

VA is tricky because the data coming out of Primary schools is so imprecise - especially with more and more academies.
but - FFT and RAiseonline have got years and years of data so that is a baby I'd rather was kept in the bath.

TP

Knowing your rigour for data from past conversations, what performance data, if any, would you like parents to see?

For the 11-16 age group, I find the cohort and value add analysis best, but I'd like to know your comment on it - for example low/middle/high attainers at primary school, the "value add" to each of those and the eventual GCSE output. I'd also like to see VA and progress of all the younger "vintages" showing the schools more recent performance as the GCSE cohort is 5 years out of date for potential year 7s.

senua
If you read about how the marking is done nowadays, the anomalies are only to be expected.
The markers do not see the scripts - just a digital scan of them.
The annotations and marking scheme have to be put in another box on screen.
The computer adds it up - markers are rarely aware of final mark, let alone the moderated version
and for all that they get a couple of pounds per paper

the rants on the thread last summer while the ladies were working ran through the hassles in detail

At least in the UK remarking is allowed.

It isn't allowed in the French brevet or bac.

Certainly in the 80s for Maths at Cambridge there was a differentiation in the grades required for further maths for those who didn't take the entrance exam, depending on the board the candidates' schools were using. If you did the entrance exam the board didn't matter - but some colleges (including mine) suggested kids studying with one board in particular did a Maths summer school before going up, just to make sure we were all up to the same speed by October.

I have to agree about the reliability of marking. Just within our own family we have had several examples of having to to query results.
The most spectacular was one of DD's GCSEs: she got a B Grade in every paper except one, which was a D Grade. You'd think that a quick overview would spot the anomaly but it wasn't until I requested a remark that someone spotted that the examiner had missed some of the marks off the total.
The marker must have got a 'feel' of the paper - that the student was a B Grade - but didn't notice when the result came out as D. No-one did a double check on the additions. No-one questioned why one paper was so much out of kilter with the rest.
Very poor quality control.

I did my GCEs in the early 1980's
there was snobbery about hard and easy exam boards back then.
And as now, University offers did not reflect it.

This is not entirely true e.g. Cambridge used to offer a lower grade for a further maths in the 90s. All students I knew who had taken that board had a B for FM offer rather than an A. When it comes to missed grades and whether the student gets accepted there is a consideration of the modules taken/the board also. Some maths modules are considered "harder" than others, for example.

THeWordFActory
The markers are paid the same and the marking is as high pressured - on my debt threads are several teachers who did exam marking in the summer ..... their comments are far more reliable than anything you'll get from "spokespeople"

Its just that the volume of iGCSE papers is so much lower that moderation is much easier

The reliability issues surrounding high stakes examinations are pretty scandalous and there is, IMO, quite a lot to be said for systems where DC get a mean mark that is a (weighted) average of all papers as, to some extent, this attenuates marking issues.

I'm not convinced the marking for IGCSE is less flakey. I susoect - but have no proof - that it might be flakey in a different way. Or, less flakey in one direction but equally flakey in the other (ie no or little under marking but the same amount of over marking).

There are, I believe, stats that suggest that state educated kids do better at university than private educated kids with the same result profile. People generally assume this is because state educated kids are used to battling against the odds - but another factor might be that state educated kids' results are...less 'soft'...

The real - and much bigger - issue is whether or not GCSEs/iGCSEs are fit for purpose...

I don't know why the marking in IGCSE is less flakey.

Are the markers paid more for those papers? So they have more time? Is it because the questions are clearer so less open to interpretive marking?

As for gold star standard, I don't think anyone has said or would say that IGCSEs are that.

Just better than the alternative.

Why are iGCSEs less prone to marking problems than GCSEs? The same people do the marking.

I agree that there is less state interference in syllabi but I am not convinced that iGCSEs are some kind of gold standard: several schools in Paris and around Paris offer them and I know DC who really aren't that good at English get As (in the first language, not the second language, version) at Language and* Literature.

To avoid state interference.
To avoid marking problems.
To avoid ill thought out syllabi.

Fair enough for programmes that have already started/are imminent. I just don't really understand why iGCSEs would have any raison d'être if GCSEs have the coursework element removed.

DS takes his exams in 2016. The school has already chosen exam boards and curricula. Only Ministers and SPADS seem to think that education changes retrospectively.

Well the 2015 cohort already started their courses in September so we know they still exist along side one another.

As for the future? Well who can say? The election here may put paid to the new GCSE system.

Your underlying assumption is that both will continue to exist. I wonder whether that assumption will hold?

bonsoir in theory that's correct.

However, I suspect that many independent schools will avoid any switch over for a few years to see how many problems there are.

State interference, dodgy marking (this is a huge problem in GCSE) etc are things many schools are very content to avoid where possible.

I did my GCEs in the early 1980's
there was snobbery about hard and easy exam boards back then.
And as now, University offers did not reflect it.
QED

I have no idea whether iGCSEs are "harder" or "easier" than GCSEs. IGCSEs were created for DC who needed a linear final examination model because they were at schools that could not cope with modular exams or coursework.

If GCSEs are moving to linear structures maybe there will no longer be a requirement for differentiated iGCSEs and GCSEs?

molio I hope things calm down.

The last few years of university offers have been like an arms race.

A* offers in particular are harsh ( unnecessary?) in humanities.

We were going to Secondary School open days at the time Private schools were starting to make the switch.

1. For several schools the push seem to have come from proposed changes to GCSE science which schools worried would provide a poorer preparation for A level. (For those with slightly longer memories there were real concerns then about GCSE grade inflaton and dumbing down - and no Gove to blame.)

1. MFL was the second driver for similar reasons. As I understand it, one school came a cropper on its French iGCSE results the first time round, as it was much harder.

1. The comment from a teacher at a GDST school was that the boys schools were leading the way because boys tended to do better at linear exams. Private girls schools had fewer problems as girls tended to be diligent about coursework.

1. There appeared to be a lot of cheating around coursework. One mother with older children told me, in complete seriousness, that an advantage of sending your child to boarding school was that the parent was not responsible for getting the coursework done. Another child used her brother's coursework for a school project, and was completely open about the fact the tutor had written it. (DD was furious as she had worked very hard on her project and felt she deserved the prize.)

1. IME the choosing of exams and boards is down to individual departments within schools and is mainly driven by syllabus. Teachers chose the board that most closely reflects the course they want to teach. Yes GCSE grades count, but for schools aiming to get pupils to good RG Universities, they are only a hurdle that needs to be passed on the way, not a major issue.

1. Several London schools, including Westminster and SPGS, seem to take CIE iGCSE English. I suspect this is a different exam to the iGCSE TiP is talking about. (Though have no idea why they do or what it is like on the C/D boundary.)

It's good that on the UCAS form you can't hide the dates exams were taken either, so uni admissions people can see if you split the exams. Minor point compared to the lack of transparency with modules, but still relevant to assessing performance in the context of workload. The 'new' marking and deflation in grades is coming through now, so more and more B grades trickling through at the top universities I'd expect and schools reacting by entering pupils for fewer exams, so fewer kids with twelve or thirteen A* all taken in one go.

Of course the re-introduction of linear GCSEs across the board and the stamping out of serial resits will resolve these issues.