Will new GCSE's bring a halt to Social Mobility?

ricardian I teach at Oxbridge in a fairly popular non stem subject.

We already find it tough to meet our widening participation target ( unofficial though that target is) because the state sector is unable to produce suitable candidates in numbers.

Colleagues are concerned by how far they will be expected to take contextualisation.

This is usually a lesser concern for STEM as enough good state candidates do well at GCSE/AS.

With the new GCSE gradings and no AS grades for some candidates, it will be tricky when compared to applicants with IGCSE plus AS.

We will end up needing more and more pre tests which as we know discourages participation.

Tis a problem we shouldn't just laugh at.

Back in the 1970s, it was possible to get into a highly selective university with C and B grades. Bristol (then extremely selective) wanted 3 x B; York was about the same; Leeds and (I can't remember) were happy with 3 x C, and Cardiff offered me a place with 2 x E grades. Then, grades were normed so only x% of students regardless of % marks at A level would get awarded an A grade, Oxbridge set their own admission papers generally taken after A levels, and there were S papers for which schools only entered their top few students.

When he was applying most RG unis asked for AAA for his course, now many are asking for A*AA

Asking? Or getting?

I can think of an RG STEM course which was asking A*AA but went into clearing this year.

Unsurprisingly, there are very few people in clearing who have A*AA, or anything remotely like it.

For many courses there is already not really pressure on RG places:

But is that only because pressure on places is eased by upping entrance requirements? DS1 is now in the 3rd year at uni.When he was applying most RG unis asked for AAA for his course, now many are asking for A*AA

Though surely there will always be pressure on Oxbridge/Russell group places.

As disquis says, there isn't now. Offers are made to everyone who has roughly the right predicted grades, and if you get those grades or something close you get in. Almost everywhere is in adjustment, and most courses are in clearing as well. Think about it: with five slots on the UCAS form, any subject with less than five applicants per place is in trouble.

MN often gives a very distorted picture, as there are lots of posts about highly selective courses (Oxbridge, medicine etc) which represent a very small minority of even "top universities" courses.

This. Every word. The debates on MN about what you have to do to get an offer are just a joke: there are plenty of Oxbridge courses which get fewer than three applicants per place, interview 90% of them, offer AAA to everyone sensible and admit at AAB. Part of the trick that private schools manage to drive up their rate of Oxbridge admission is steering candidates towards those courses; part of the problem for non-traditional applicants is that they only apply to the most competitive courses.

Medicine distorts the whole debate. Most people don't do medicine. Getting into university is, if you have reasonable A Levels, a matter of choosing where to go and filling in the form.

Though surely there will always be pressure on Oxbridge/Russell group places.

For many courses there is already not really pressure on RG places: if you are predicted around the right grades you get an offer. Provided you don't miss the offer by more than a grade or so you get the place. A lot of highly respected courses at top ten or twenty universities take a few extra students in clearing or adjustment to meet their student number targets.

Universities income is strongly dependent on student numbers and just to break even most universities (including RG ones) need to increase their student numbers year on year as fees have been fixed for several years now, while costs have increased substantially. As posted above there are very large concerns about the shrinking pool of UK applicants over the next few years (across almost all subjects, including STEM).

MN often gives a very distorted picture, as there are lots of posts about highly selective courses (Oxbridge, medicine etc) which represent a very small minority of even "top universities" courses.

That is v. interesting, Ricardian; I didn't realise that at all. Though surely there will always be pressure on Oxbridge/Russell group places. The departments that suffer will be mostly in the newer universities, presumably?

You might expect that, but is it a reasonable expectation? Is the distribution of grades at the top end in a comp the same as in a selective or private school?

This blog, Why do schools with the most able intakes make the most progress? is an interesting read.

www.educationdatalab.org.uk/Blog/May-2015/Why-do-pupils-at-schools-with-the-most-able-intake.aspx#.VjYDq8SQGrW

If you extend that to raw scores, then we would expect selective schools to be over-represented at the top of the raw scores, hence the 9 grade as well.

English, MFL, humanities are going to be faced with ever starker contrasts between state and independent applicants both in terms of numbers and grades.

Hah. Hah. Hah. Been in a university "how are the UCAS numbers looking so far this round?" meeting lately?

There's a 20% drop in the number of 18 year olds per year over the next ten years. The rise in numbers thereafter (ie, the delta between the births in 2005 versus the trend of what 2005's births would have been without the high levels of primary immigration over the late 1990s) is largely the children of first generation immigrations who are far more likely to study vocational subjects than humanities. We are already seeing a marked shift in university applications from humanities to STEM and numbers of strong applicants, even in top universities, are falling (it's a myth that people are firmly bound one way or the other; a large portion of Oxbridge humanities students would have been perfectly capable of getting into RG STEM courses, and vice versa).

The idea that there is going to be pressure on places for English, MFL (MFL!) and the humanities more widely over the coming years is preposterous. The real issue is going to be how many English, MFL and humanities departments are going to close for lack of applicants.

To be more specific Noble, the new grade 9 will be awarded to the top 20% of those gaining grade 7 or above. In my top set, all targeted at 7 or above, I would, therefore, be expecting at least six to achieve a 9.

I teach in a fully comprehensive school with a broad social mix. I expect many of my bright and wonderful Y10 pupils to get a grade 9 in their exam next year. They are focused and working hard and I have every faith in their ability to do it.

The 9 will only be awarded to the top 3% in the country. Even if your Y10s are bright and hardworking, how can you say that they are among the top 3% bright and hardworking Y10s in the country? We have no idea where the grade boundary will be.

6% of kids got an A in maths GCSE last year. To get an A in Edexcel you needed 78%. Where, in the remaining 22% do you think the top 3% fell? I'm guessing a bell curve, but I don't know how sharp the drop-off is.

Grade 9 will equate to roughly the top 3% of all candidates.

^this, and everything Ricardian said.

My son is in y10 at a grammar school (top 10 state schools in the country, that sort of level), and we had a GCSE talk the other day, which included the new 1to9 maths and English exams. The HT said that they get 80+ % getting A and A* for English and 90+ for maths, and they will expect the same amount to be getting 7s and 8s, with a few of their mathematicians getting 9s.

No, I don't think your scenario is going to happen.

Some if my colleagues feel there may certainly be an impact on widening access in some areas.

Whilst STEM and maths in general will probably find a way through all this (many exceptional students prove themselves in both sectors plus pre tests) English, MFL, humanities are going to be faced with ever starker contrasts between state and independent applicants both in terms of numbers and grades. Yet they are going to still be expected to endlessly improve widening participation.

Once this system is up and working after two years there will be a 9 grade then a 9* grade then a 10 will be introduced etc etc. The papers will be filled with 'record number of pupils with grade 9s/grade 10s' so I don't think that fundamentally anything will change. All our children can do is stick with traditional subjects and work their hardest. Good luck everyone, dd3 is taking A2 this year and hopefully, fingers crossed, as a family we will have come through the ever-changing secondary exam system unscathed.

No, I don't think the grading system at GCSE will make much difference. However, I have a friend whose daughter just started at Cambridge from a comprehensive and their view was that getting into Oxbridge was an extra A level in its own right! I'm sure parents at private schools feel the same way but they may also have selected their school on its ability to negotiate that system. Admissions tutors are pretty canny about GCSEs and schools, but they have a whole raft of criteria that aspiring applicants need to know about when they apply. And, of course, bright students have to actually apply in the first place - and that depends very much on how much encouragement and knowledge is available to them from schools and parents.

Depressing assumption that education is just about the grades you get, and getting them as easily as possible.
Lots of hardworking and 'bright' pupils are bored and unchallenged, because fulfilling the formula to get an A is not that hard for them. But highest they can get is an A. So if they are in a school where the teachers gratefully accept those kids will get an A they will not be stretched - why bother - the school can only count an A so they just teah tot eh test and no more. Sometimes they will get them doing more subjects, hence those state schools that trumpet kids with 15 A*s - completely meaningless for the DC (but great for school's league tables). If there will now be something else to aim for, those DC will hopefully be less likely to be short-changed, as the schools will have to up their game for them.
At my DC indie school, where all the pupils are high achieving, they don't go pot-hunting for ever more numbers of A GCSE, or do them early to get more in the bag, because they recognise that learning is they vital thing, so the DC do more in depth than they would ever need jut to get an A, because that is more educational than just a bunch of qualifications.

I don't think the new grading system will make much difference, one way or the other.

Agreed.

Universities can and do request AS UMS. Students can and do include UMS on UCAS forms, although I agree that the vast majority of universities don't care.

As I didn't make clear, I was mainly referring to GCSE UMS, which so far as I am aware no university requests, and contrasting it with AS UMS, which a few do.

Universities can and do request AS UMS. Students can and do include UMS on UCAS forms, although I agree that the vast majority of universities don't care.

Cambridge admission doesn't even do that, using AS UMS as the main discriminant (quite what they're going to do going forward is something of a mystery).

Switch to a system like Oxford's, i.e. entrance tests/exams before interview.

let's work on the reasonable assumption that it will and it's going to be rough - is probably going to look at value-add.

But in reality the aim of the TEF is likely to be to pick out the usual suspects as the top places, so it is unlikely that value added is going to be the predominant criterion. TEF results will determine whether universities can raise fees and there's no way that the criteria will be set to exclude Oxbridge etc from being in that group.

Switching from A*s to 9s at GCSE won't particularly help with selection at the "top" universities, because many students are late developers and only come into their own with A levels. Currently Oxford and Cambridge apply some filters based on GCSE and AS grades but still interview far more students than they have places. The cutoffs in the new system will just be set so approximately the same number are interviewed, with approximately the same (or "better" i.e. more diverse) demographics than now. I don't think the new grading system will make much difference, one way or the other.

The whole point is that an A* didn't distinguish between the bright and the extremely bright.

Who needed to know the difference?

I mean, back to OP's questions, are there more kids in the country who will only get 9s than there are spaces at university for them (presuming they want to go to Uni at all). If there are more spaces than all-9s kids, then the all-9s kids can't take all the top spaces.

I think?

I teach in a fully comprehensive school with a broad social mix. I expect many of my bright and wonderful Y10 pupils to get a grade 9 in their exam next year. They are focused and working hard and I have every faith in their ability to do it.

ricardian
Universities don't ask for or get UMS
I just checked with DD whose UCAS form went in a few weeks ago.
Universities can and do request full UMS.

if the new grade 9 becomes the entry requirement for the top universities and competitive courses and if the vast majority are awarded to private school pupils then pupils at the local comp

What makes you think that state school pupils (93% of the cohort) will not be capable of getting top grades?

Are all non fee paying pupils in Comp counties magically thick?

In which case, how did two kids in DDs year get the hat in further maths?

or am I missing something?

Universities don't ask for or get UMS. Cambridge ask for AS UMS, and there are anecdotal claims that it's worth slipping notable AS UMS into references for Oxford, but otherwise, no-one sees AS UMS and no-one sees GCSE UMS. That's because (see above) they don't care.

GCSE results have become the great shibboleth, both politically and amongst aspirational parents. They don't matter, directly. They matter indirectly because GCSEs are, up to a point, predictors of A2. But the belief that there is a heaven for those with 12 A* and the fiery pit for those with 9 A is just bollocks: no university would regard there as being a hard line between those two applicants.