Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

New research: number to get straight 9s could be as low as 200

105 replies

noblegiraffe · 01/07/2018 08:49

Unlike the previous prediction of 1-2 students getting straight 9s, this one is based on an analysis of 2016 exam data by Cambridge Assessment.
For students taking at least 8 subjects, they reckon between 200 and 900 will get straight 9s, out of about half a million students.
About 2000 got straight A*s in 2016.

www.tes.com/news/very-few-will-get-GCSE-clean-sweep

OP posts:
Original poster
noblegiraffe · 01/07/2018 10:30

The prediction of 2 students was a data bod from the DfE having a reckon, he hadn’t actually analysed the data.

OP posts:
Original poster
noblegiraffe · 01/07/2018 10:28

I think it’s useful to warn parents to lower their expectations because significantly more than 200-900 students have been given target grades of straight 9s by their school. There’s certainly more than 1 kid in my comp in that position.

We cannot let these children feel like they have failed if they don’t meet an unreasonable target.

We also need to continue to remind children that a 7 is an excellent grade even if it is now 2 grades from the top grade.

OP posts:
ThomasNightingale · 01/07/2018 10:22

I did think that this was the most rubbish headline of all time from the Telegraph.

“Threshold of Top Grade increased significantly: fewer children now expected to achieve Top Grade”. No! Really?!

If someone was really predicting fewer than a handful getting a clean sweep then that did seem pretty unlikely though. They’re only GCSEs and although you have to have a rare combination of talent, hard work and luck to not slip below a 9 in any of them, out of half a million there should be enough children for rather more to hit the jackpot.

It’ll be interesting to see - but it’s surely of purely theoretical interest: it’s not as if Cambridge are suddenly going to say “looks like they’re all crap this year, let’s only let in two hundred of them instead of four thousand”. (Before Noble jumps on me I am aware that there are also real problems with the implementation of the new exams).

errorofjudgement · 01/07/2018 10:08

I thought A isn’t the equivalent of a grade 9, A is equivalent to grade 8, with only the very top few percent of those scoring a 9.
At least that’s how it was explained to us last year. So if your DC were forecasted A/A* s in their GCSEs then they should broadly expect 7/8s in the new system.

TheThirdOfHerName · 01/07/2018 09:53

Was the prediction of 2 students in the country based on the probability of 9 in each subject being independent from each other?
I would imagine that a pupil who gets a 9 in Maths would have a higher probability of getting a 9 in Physics than a pupil who gets a 4 in Maths would.

Swipe left for the next trending thread