2014 GCSE league tables

”. . . there are those at the very top of the tree in expertise and leadership in education who are adamant that IGCSE are not only not hugely more difficult than GCSE but without any shadow of a doubt easier.”

Really, Molio? And these are people at the very top of the tree in expertise and leadership in education who say GCSEs are tougher than IGCSEs which are taken by overseas students? So, what these so-called experts and leaders in education are saying is that British kids are much cleverer than overseas kids because (huge majority of) British kids take the tough GCSEs.

And you are buying all that crap, Molio? These so-called ‘experts and leaders’ in education are having far too much of a comfortable life at the top of the tree and for far too long, and they should now come down to earth to get a life and get real to see where their British GCSE students stand against their overseas IGCSE peers in terms of educational achievements.

Now, as to which system is harder, GCSE or IGCSE, you decide for yourselves with these Maths questions. For the same number of marks, work out the answers for yourselves if you can, and don’t worry if you can’t, there’s always a second attempt, a third attempt, a fourth . . . until you get it right.

Edit: Sorry folks, forget to say the multiple attempts apply to the very hard piecemeal GCSEs only.

Molio I am afraid that I have a weakness for factual details not just the general principles and moral arguments. I frequently come across bias from even internationally recognised experts so all information has to be assessed in context. From your response I take it you did n't get the level of detailed information from this person to answer my question about the relative improvement in grades from changing to IGCSEs extending to the A* s?

It should be chased up - in the old days of LEA schools with Attached inspectors it would have been.

But chances are that both schools are now academies with little or no oversight.

Yes, but these schools are neighbouring, so DC are local - they come from the same primaries, so any distortion should cancel out - why does one secondary make twice the amount of progress with children from the same catchment/same KS2 data?

The trouble with expected progress is that its based upon extrapolations of data that has been jumped through hoops in previous years

eg frankly dodgy KS2 SATs data
and QCA test data where staff were the invigilators
AND
the standard deviations on small primary school cohort sizes can be huge.

AsS a Governor I had the joy of reading the FFT and Raiseonline data
it gave me a headache
and I love numbers

The data does make it easy to compare schools, just not on the GCSE results. It shows the percentage of low, middle and high attaining DC who have made 'expected' progress. I have just done some comparisons between local schools and the difference is stark. Really shocking the disparity between similar intake schools in the percentage making only expected progress.
Two local state non-selective comps. In one only 14% of low attaining DC make 'expected' progress in maths. In the other 36% do.
Still shocking that less than half achieve what is reasonably expected, but the difference between the schools needs explanation.
Why do twice as many achieve in the second school as the first?
And the middle and high achievers show similar disparity - this is where attention should focus, and answers required.

The only people I can see who are really going to lose out are parents of prospective secondary school children who won't be able to make head or tale of league tables.It fudges the difference between school performances now , and how schools have performed over the lifetime of this government by making it impossible to compare like with like.
And there is an election coming up.Funny that

summerends in spite of uilen's possibly unconscious distortion of what I said, I also agree that the difference is marginal, but errs on the side of GCSEs being the harder. So not worth arguing about with any degree of earnestness, but still worth pointing out that IGCSEs aren't actually harder, even if the glossy marketing bumph from an expensive indie claims it to be so. My source is not only impeccable in my opinion, he's impeccable in the opinion of all political parties, pressure groups, academics and educationalists. I'm just a lemming and more than happy to follow this particular crowd. So no, not my opinion - that would count for less than nothing. Across the board easier if that answers your question.

I really wonder at some of these links which posters post. There seems to be an unquestioning belief in the substance of any article or statistics provided they're 'linked'. A source thing again: do sources count for nothing?

I just compared progress figures from 2014 stats to 2013 - archive of previous years 1994 - 2013 are on left hand side of DFE performance page.
I don't think your dc's school is bad by any means - just not as great as you make out.

Clavinova
Please could you tell me which school your children attend so that I can similarly pick apart their figures?

And out of interest, could you message me the link for your assertion as I cannot see it on the DFE page.

*effect

Talkin - I think the head at your dc's school has done a good job ignoring the 10% drop in progress in English for the high achievers (who presumably didn't take the IGCSE) and the 10% drop in progress in maths for the middle achievers. The drop in maths must also be a worrying concern for the school and have an affect on the league tables.

^But also, on a wider scale, those with kids in selective and private schools find it incredibly hard to comprehend how hard some kids have to work to scrape 5 C grades including English and Maths

Schools have tried to help them and then twits like the SPADs at the DFE pull the rug.^

On this, we are in complete agreement (with the caveat that some parents will have kids in more than one type of school and therefore different levels of awareness than those lucky enough to only have feet in one camp).

Gently
Indeed, this lass misses a day a week of schooling for hospital appointments alone (and has done every term since the age of about 8)

But also, on a wider scale, those with kids in selective and private schools find it incredibly hard to comprehend how hard some kids have to work to scrape 5 C grades including English and Maths

Schools have tried to help them and then twits like the SPADs at the DFE pull the rug.

Talkin - being in a wheelchair may not be a learning difficulty at all. Dyslexia on the other hand is a learning difficulty, as can be AS (not in all circumstances I agree). It is perfectly possible for a child with SEN to get full marks for CAs - as I said, DD1 did - but it wasn't a doddle.

In the same way that people without physical challenges often underestimate the scale of difficulties facing those with physical challenges, IME people without SEN (or without children who have SEN) completely underestimate the impact these conditions can have. Some of those people refuse to admit their complete ignorance even when it is pointed out to them.

Gently
I will stick to my overall 15% for the word "doddle"
as a friend who has the mother of all statements gor really high marks in all of her CAs despite being in an electric wheelchair with a shortened life expectancy.
SEN is not always a learning difficulty

Talkin - I think you mean the top 15% excluding those with SEN conditions.

I agree that many (most?) of the brightest kids with or without SEN conditions would be better served by linear xmas - DD1 did all linear so far as possible but there were still CAs and ISAs. Completely linear would have suited her much much better. Not sure about DS.

Was it so wrong for schools to get as many of their pupils over that hurdle as possible?

It was completely the right thing to do. It's outrageous that this avenue is now being denied to state school kids but left open to the less able kids in private schools. And there are plenty of those.

summerends Tee hee. I regularly do.
The aim of my links was to find references to the debate by named individuals with reputations to lose. There is lots on the TES forums, but IDs are just that.

wordfactory / gentlybenevolent
Controlled assessments are indeed a doddle for the top 15% of kids -
getting 100% is not in the least unheard of in comps.
Indeed those kids will be much better tested by the linear approach.

But the baby has been thrown out with the bath water.

Modular exams are much better suited to those without the ability to hold two years' worth of information.

As I posted at 19:46 last night
after all, if you are mending a Mercedes, do you remember all of the wiring looms or remember where to look them up?

The exam system has to work for all kids, not just those who will be heading to Top Universities.

Even menial jobs now demand a C grade at GCSE English and Maths.
Was it so wrong for schools to get as many of their pupils over that hurdle as possible?

The syllabuses are all broadly similar, its definitely not worth arguing about

Oh, I agree, really. I suspect I'm very unlucky with the private school parents I know IRL who make a point of reminding everyone else that iGCSEs are so much harder (and their children' achievements thus so much more laudable) than the paltry exams taken at state schools. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't pull a hair for any of it (having DCs with SEN issues I'm fully aware that there are more barriers in place for some kids than just the syllabus of the exam they are taking).

I do think that Talkin' is right though that some state schools, who did appear to be encouraged at least implicitly to adopt iGCSEs and entered their pupils for those exams in good faith have been a bit shafted. And that's not fair on the schools, and especially on anyone whose job security might be affected by it. As Molio pointed out it won't affect the individual kids who sat those exams though which is a key point.

As in all things, the issue of cui bono is worth considering - the private schools aren't actually negatively impacted by not being in the tables, these aren't things they particularly consider valuable (and they can tell their customers that this again proves the point that exams and results that are vulnerable to political chicanery are not ideal (and they aren't wrong)). The state schools that have seen their position adversely affected on the other hand probably do care quite a bit.

Molio I understand that you have been talked through some results by an impeccable source (IYO) rather than have them at hand. However from that are you able to address the myth of whether the results improved as much for the A as for the % of Cs. My DCs are in both systems so similarly to WF* I don't really care (although I do care about the quality of teaching and how much is covered beyond what is required to get the grades).

TP the type of language in which your first link was written makes me very thankful I don't have to read that sort of thing for a living.

A few years ago it was often said that the Cambridge igcses were much tougher than the edexcel ones, so it is quite possible they are both harder than and easier than GCSEs according to which syllabus is used. There is quite likely a difference across subjects too. However, there have always been GCSE syllabuses that are rumoured to be easier or harder too (modular vs linear maths was a case in point recently), so i suspect any differences between GCSEs and igcses are fairly minimal and not substantially different to the normal variation between syllabuses of different courses. The syllabuses are all broadly similar, its definitely not worth arguing about.

Word - I've never (until now) read any posts from you being disparaging about the exams taken by state school kids! You are most decidedly not the target of my (mild) irritation in this matter. The fact remains that whatever reasons your two schools had for adopting IGCSEs or not there are schools in both sectors which have fled to IGCSE as a safe haven, either because of the absence of political chicanery, the relative height of the D/C hurdle, or the need to follow the herd so as not to lose competitive advantage.

DD1 also got a full house of full marks for English and History CAs when she was doing them. Dyslexic DS however is deliriously happy with his (hopefully) A grade marks so far and would look a bit at you if he heard your suggestion that it's easy to get full marks. As, to be honest, do I. It isn't, not for most kids.

The third link on TalkinPeace's post has quotes from Oxford Home Schooling which offers both GCSEs and IGCSEs, and they are quoted as saying, " There is no doubt that IGCSE Maths is more demanding...there are a number of sub-A-level topics, like calculus and matrices on the IGCSE spec." For other subjects (English aside), "The real difference comes in the breadth and depth of coverage of each topic...We would estimate that there is typically an extra 20%-30% to learn for each IGCSE as compared to its GCSE equivalent."

When schools such as King's College Wimbledon offer IGCSEs in many subjects plus the IB and then send over 25% of every year group to Oxford or Cambridge you've got to as yourself why? It's not to game the system I'm sure of that!

uilen there's no reason why state school parents can't be well informed either.

Also, I haven't written anything over and over again, I've said a couple of times, fairly mildly, that IGCSE's aren't tougher than GCSEs. That's rather different to your suggestion that I said IGCSEs are 'much' or 'significantly' easier, which I didn't.

It is actually very funny how often things are distorted on threads to impute a wholly different meaning to what was originally said (well not very perhaps, but quite).

gently I have DC taking both - I have no skin in this particular game. Or perhaps it's fairer to say that I have all my skin in it.

Both are at private school.

DS school chooses IGCSE for a number of reasons. To ensure the boys all get a C aint one of them!

DD's school chooses GCSE. It's mixed ability. The grades are fab. If there were any advanatge for these girls in taking IGCSE, trust me they would be! The school's MO is doing whatever it takes to get each girl a good set of grades, even if they're not the brightest.

The truth is it is much easier to bank nice high marks in CAs, ISAs, pre-prepared orals, during the school year, than have it all riding on black in May.

DD has managed to bank full scores in all her CAs so far in English and Spanish and History. It really isn't tough to do that. The spanish written paper even included a vocabulary list!!!

The only IGCSEs DD is doing is in French. Introduced for the girls likely to do French A level, because the content is (a bit) more challenging and so better prep.