Y10 child predicted mostly grade 9s for gcse

I used the term "handed out" but I did not mean to disparage those who worked hard. However, under the old system a lot of pupils did get As without being exceptional at the subject. I know - I have a ds who got As in most of his subjects but he freely admits that he was only top of the tree in a few of them. A = very good, but it did not identify those who were very very good. Ds and most of his friends got A for French. They can't string two words together! The old exam was largely a memory test and the new one is by all accounts a great deal harder.

How dd will do is anyone's guess as the school have done away with any kind of marking . No comments on any work and only ticks. They've been sitting controlled assessments and dd says no one has a clue if they've done well or completely flunked it. There was some guff about they were supposed to know themselves how they'd done.

Maisy some posters are capable of bragging about the sun rising over their back garden. One very prolific poster on the education threads a few years back bragged about how her DC 'had a life' when her cousin (at the same school) got a full house of A* which the DC with 'a life' very decidedly did not. I don't think a full house of 9s will be required for bragging rights....

Glad it's reassuring, we can do with all the reassurance we can get at the moment! English Lit tomorrow, right? Will be interesting to see how it goes with a live exam. Good luck!

That's reassuring me a bit.
I'm English and feel the demands at the top end of the mark schemes are really tough, especially with 3 texts and 15 poems from memory.
Could my most able get full marks? Absolutely. I've loved the more difficult content and no controlled assessments.

My worry is that in a 2h15 closed book exam they can't demonstrate the exceptional, nuanced arguments I've seen over the last 2 years.

Your post is making me feel fractionally less worried.

Yes, Maisy, certainly in maths and English (not sure what you teach?). The 8 will cover the top of the A grade as well as the bottom of the A* grade, so some students who would have got an A last year will be getting an 8 this year.

It doesn't matter how relatively difficult the exam is to last year because the grade 7 boundary is pegged to the proportion who got an A last year, so the grade boundaries will be way lower.

1-9 is a ( spectacularly badly done) welcome return to norm marking.

The problem arose when it was deemed that all A* should be academically equal -
hence the insanity of 50% of Chemistry students getting A/A*
Yup they were bright because they did Chemistry, but they were not the brightest Chemists.

At DCs school there was a year when 5 pupils each got 14 x A*
barking : I know the kids, there were bright but not that bright

Grade inflation had to be tamed but 1-9 is not the right way to do it ---- wait three years

Do you think noble.
I think it's significantly harder in my subject. We're expecting out A* rate to drop this year.

It's going to be easier to get an 8 than it was to get an A*.

As are not "handed out", how insulting to those who worked hard to get them.*
Compared to the new 8s and 9s they are.
And I say that as someone who got mainly A* (and worked hard!) And who teaches the new spec.

Anyone who thinks they are like for like comparable would be kidding themselves. Fact. New content, new assessment foci, new exam style, new timing demands, no coursework. Totally different ball game.

I think any teacher predicting all 9s at this stage before anyone has taken any of the new exams is taking a huge risk
This. And a 9 will change each year because it's norm referenced.

Most schools near me won't even give 9s out.

I can see the 9s becoming a massive thing on gcse threads in a year or so as it becomes the new bragging toy of usually middle class parents who live through their children.

etc.)

Not closing that bracket would probably bring me down to an 8 in Eng Lang....

lottysmum life skills and academic skills aren't mutually exclusive and some mothers on MN are not getting into a tizzy about their DC being predicted pretty much all 9s, they just think the froth from some other posters is quite funny. Someone's got to bag a full hand - why not a MN DC? I think it would be quite cool for DD to get all her predictions but only if she can do it without any undue stress (which I think might be possible, given a fair wind and no illness etc. No amount of 9s is worth stress if 8s or even 7s come without it and that seems to be to be the best attitude for parents to pass on to their kids.

There's no "level 9 mark". For each subject there's a formula to determine the percentage of people getting at least a 7-worthy mark who will be given a 9. And then 8 is halfway between 7 and 9.

Do you mean that if more get a level 9 mark than the gov. Want it will be a lottery which ones get awarded the 9?

Of course it has to be right for some people or we probably wouldn't need to measure it!

On paper, DD is being predicted 7-9s. Verbally, she's being told she could get 9s in everything. I guess that's diff between predicted & target.

She works her socks off for her grades, btw. She Does not expect to get 7x9s (plus 4xA*s for GCSEs completed sooner).

I'll eat one of her socks if she gets a 9 in RE, actually. She isn't that bothered about sweeping the board.

Yes agree with a couple of PPs, A*s are not "handed out", how insulting to those who worked hard to get them.

My DD is in yr 11 and if she gets any As I will be very pleased. She is working and has worked really hard and is a bright girl but I don't envisage straight As. The very best student last year at the school I work at, a very bright pupil hoping to go to Oxford, got IIRC 5 As and 5A*s.

Lots of kids don't get all A*s, it's still very impressive. Needless to say, all 9s will be even more impressive, so wow indeed to your friend's child OP, and good luck to them.

I read the Ofqual blog last week and it clearly stated :

Our advice to schools would be this: do not rely on any predictions of grade boundary marks for new GCSEs next summer. They are only a best guess, regardless of any modelling that might have been done. If the boundaries in the summer turn out to be different, which is quite likely for all the reasons set out above, you and you students might be disappointed.

I think we all get a little fixated with our children being deemed to be the brightest children within its peer group - especially on Mumsnet ...

I have three nieces two incredibly bright - who have worked very hard to get their grades - no tutoring but they were fortunate to gain places at a top 30 grammar school which was 5 minutes down the road from where they live - they have both steered away from Oxbridge even though they were both very capable of being offered places ...HOWEVER...my third niece was not engaged at school did very bad in most of her exams - failed and resat her Maths exam ...self harmed for many years - she loved make up and hairdressing and did extremely well in this field BUT opted out after a few years to work in a customer service department of a bank ...Well surprise surprise they saw she had potential and she's quickly risen through the ranks - become a qualified Financial Advisor (scored highly in all exams)...brought her own house 18 months ago- drives an Evogue and gets married in September - Aged 27 ..she can deal with people and has amazing Interpersonal skills

I cant see either of my other two nieces being in this situation even though they are extremely bright ....

Perhaps we need to focus more on life skills rather than academic skills and take some pressure of our children whilst they are still so young ...

"Here’s Mr. Cartwright working out the predicted 9-1 grades for our Year 11s preparing to sit the new GCSEs"

You have to scroll down a bit.

othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2017/05/19/a-tour-of-stock-photos-academy/

I don't think this is right. If the child in question does somehow manage to get all 9s (and it's highly doubtful!) then it's only what was expected of him. If he gets a nice respectable collection of 7s and 8s, he may be left feeling like his efforts weren't good enough, he failed to meet targets, etc. I think 9s should only be predicted/target grade for exceptional students in that subject. Predicting them across the board is unfair.

Personal note - I had this at school in the early 2000s, with predicted straight As, including in my weaker subjects, and no concession for the fact that I was anxious and depressed, a school refuser, and had caring responsibilities at home. I was fairly good academically, but very far from being an exceptional genius. I actually spoke to my head of year about it, explaining how impossible it was for me, and she said that someone in the school once got straight As some years before, so it was perfectly possible. That didn't help. (End result: 6A*s, no continuation to A Levels because I couldn't stand going through all the pressure again).

Some teenagers might not be bothered by target grades at all, but for those that are, setting impossible targets is incredibly unfair. It's also unfair on the teachers, if they then have to explain why those students in their class didn't get 9s and it affects their appraisal.

I emailed Ofqual about the percentage of students getting a 9 a while back, because the figures they released in March 2017 don't agree with the figures they released in September 2016.

Basically they said that they used different methodologies as well as different years of entry to come up with their percentages and that there's no guarantee that the percentage of 9s in the summer for maths and English will be the same as the latest ones they've provided.

Given that they've done even less analysis for all the other subjects, anyone predicting 9s in Y10 are predicting that without even knowing what percentage of students will get a 9 in that subject (it will be different for different subjects).

The "only 2 getting all 9's" was a guess, not a calculation

My kids and I have always looked at predictions as being what you could get if you work consistently in that subject and don't have the distraction of other subjects!

What a bastard thing to do.
Talk about setting a child up to fail.
I'd be livid if that was done to either of mine.

That was to LiC.

Agree Bertrand, straight A* are only held by the top few %.