Maths teacher says the new maths gcse is "loads harder"

Sorry Noble another question from me - if I read your earlier post right - the new pass in the stats will no longer be the C equivalent but a B equivalent ? So effectively a good GCSE will be A*-B ??

Noble - just been going through posts and appreciate your comments on how teachers will probably assess targeted grades.

DD has been given predicted grades of 7 in Eng Lang & Lit and 8 in Maths. In her end of term maths test she got an 8, which sounds brilliant as I guess that's a strong A, but not sure how accurate it is under new system.

Edexcel and Cambridge are already planning to update their IGCSEs for content and 9-1 grading; see update - latest for schools.
qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-international-gcses-and-edexcel-certificates/international-gcse-mathematics-a-2009.html
DS1 (current year 9) has already been taught inverse functions, Venn diagrams and nth term (from A/AS level?) as part of his IGCSE syllabus so I expect the transition will be a smooth one.

As a state school teacher I'm perfectly happy for indies to stick with alternative qualifications. Selective independents would hoover up the grade 9s so if they're out of the picture, that means more for the rest of us

I'm not sure independents would be able to sell a qualification which is seen as worse than the alternative. I've no experience of the private sector but I thought they took IGCSE because they were always banging on about how much harder it was.

Do you think so noble? I reckon IGCSEs are going to be out for a while. It got spun as a u-turn when they were taken out, I think any Tory government won't want to go back on that.

IGCSE covers a lot of that stuff from A-level anyway, e.g. functions and calculus.

What might push independent schools to the new GCSE is that parents will want that level 9 for their kids. However, the government has suggested exam boards also overhaul IGCSE so that they are GCSE-comparable. If they do, then they will be allowed back into the league tables.

If the changes mean that GCSE students are covering what was AS material (as suggested by Edexcel here) then when it comes to the students taking A Levels then there will be a presumption that they have covered that material.

If the independent schools don't take the new GCSEs then they will have to offer 'filler' classes so as not to harm their A Level results, won't they?

IGCSE changes are (IMO not to my certain knowledge) inevitable though, because the new GCSE grade 9 is designed to be higher than a current A, and as noblegiraffe* has already said, they will no longer carry funding / league table points. So state schools won't be able to sit them, and private schools will not want to offer a less competitive qualification. That will take away most if not all of the market for them.

Certainly all the independent schools that I've asked are sticking with iGCSE for now (even after the disaster that was the CIE iGCSE English Language marking). Hard to see how an independent head would justify using a totally untested exam for such critical subjects, when there is a perfectly acceptable alternative. They'll keep it under review, but no-one seems to be in a hurry to change.

They'll keep using them, I expect.

Not because of perceptions of rigour, (which have varied over time) but because they're not fiddled around with every few years.

Its interesting to read that the new GCSE will be more rigorous than the IGCE. I wonder where that leaves private schools who often seem to do the IGCE, as that is currently seen as more rigorous?

Simon that's where it gets political. The government has said that 5 will be a good pass for the new GCSE. In a few years time (how many years is currently undetermined), you will need a 5 for the league tables and to not have to resit in sixth form. 5 is really the pass grade.

But because the government knows that these changes have been rushed in and the current cohort will not be well-prepared, they will be accepting a 4 for the league tables and sixth form funding requirements.

So the pass grade really is higher, there's just this pretence that it's not. In a few years time, current Y10 will realise that they've been sold a lemon.

I don't know the old O-level spec so I can't really compare, but the styles are very different. I don't think O-level had much in the way of statistics. Due to printing issues, there were also far fewer diagrams.

Language is quite a big thing in current GCSEs. AQA have been touting their version of the new maths GCSE as being the one using the fewest words. For students with literacy issues such as dyslexia or EAL, this could be important. O-level questions were pretty murky in comparison.

Grade boundaries are never set until after the exam, but with the current GCSE we have at least some idea where they will be because we can look at the grade boundaries for previous years, and we can use those papers with our students to get an idea of how they are performing.

Because, thanks to Gove, these new qualifications haven't been piloted, we haven't got anything to go on.

And given the higher demand of the new qualifications, we could well be in the same situation as Scotland were this year, with a ridiculously low pass mark. www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/11783465/Scottish-Higher-maths-exam-pass-mark-cut-to-34-per-cent.html

Thanks, noblegiraffe! All as clear as mud. And as you didn't mention comparison between new spec and O level, does that mean still unknown except for the calculator permission?

"It's unbelievable that they won't set the grade boundaries until after the exam."

That's like O levels. Grades were by bell curve - so top X% got a 1 (or an A depending on when you did them) and so on. It's unfamiliar, because it's been a while since used. But not unprecedented. Doesn't it mean you have to teach/inspire/encourage pupils to do the very best they can, not aim for specific marks?

If she would have got an A on the old system, then she should be predicted a 7 in the new one. The same proportion of students who currently get an A or higher will get a 7 or higher.

I don't understand the new grades. My year 10 dd has been predicted an A in old grades or 6 in new in both English and maths. 6 sounds quite low as it goes up to 9.

Simon, yes the foundation paper goes up to a 5.

I'd be a bit worried by the 37% pass rate thing. If a school can't get students through the current GCSE then the new one will be a struggle. It does depend on whether the school is dominated by low attainers or whether the maths department is crap though. It's a good sign that they are putting on extra maths lessons as at least they are thinking ahead beyond current Y11. I think results for Y10 will depend quite a lot on how on-the-ball with the new stuff the maths department are.

What is going to be a major problem for Y10 is predicting grades. The grade boundary for a 4 (the current pass grade) is going to be set to be the same as the proportion of students who currently get a C or above. They are saying that they don't want to disadvantage the first cohort, so if they would have got a C, they should get a 4. But this means that we have no idea at all where the grade boundaries will be, because they won't be decided until after the exam has been sat. We could set an old GCSE paper and see what they get, but Cs and Bs won't necessarily be 4s and 5s on the new paper, because it depends on how well the rest of the country has prepared for the stuff that's different. It's all going to be licking a finger and sticking it in the air stuff.

Auntie O-level is very different to the current GCSE in things like the sort of language used, lack of calculator etc (new GCSE has 3 papers, 2 of which will be calc). IGCSE does have some of the new topics, but not all, and the new GCSE doesn't have calculus so it would be very confusing with an IGCSE book to try to figure out what was in and out. Incidentally, IGCSE maths won't count in the league tables for current Y10, they have to take the new GCSE. The IGCSE isn't considered 'rigorous enough' in comparison.

That is what the teacher said to me whothe .

Although Dd is only in year 7 I was talking to her teacher about this the other day as I had no idea whether GCSEs were still tiered(which was relevant to the conversation we were having) she seemed to imply that more students would only do the lower tier as the maximum grade for this would be the equivalent of a B (grade 5) and only the top of the top sets would do the higher tier as would be vastly more difficult to achieve a good grade in iyswim.