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Original poster

The higher / foundation tier cock up

32 replies

Cathpot · 20/08/2018 20:57

A friend just sent me this article www.tes.com/news/ofqual-saves-wrongly-entered-gcse-pupils-failure
which makes me feel vindicated for all the ranting I’ve been doing about how I felt there wasn’t enough info to chose the tiers properly and higher tier was essentially a gamble on grade boundaries, but also very sorry for the kids put through the wrong exam.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 21/08/2018 09:45

Why would it not count? Unless they specify that they need a strong pass in all subjects then an average points requirement means you can get a couple of duff results so long as you get good ones to pull your average up.

JufusMum · 21/08/2018 09:42

noble but...for instance my DD has to get an average of a 5.5 for Sixth Form, so if she gets a 3-3 in Science it's not going to count is it?

noblegiraffe · 21/08/2018 09:39

In maths before the first 9-1 sitting Edexcel ran a national mock where schools taking Edexcel all sat the same mock GCSE, the scores were then all sent off to Edexcel and analysed to show the national picture. Once the results were in, Edexcel sent everyone an analysis that basically said OMG people were are in trouble, FGS can you switch pupils from higher to foundation. They recommended that 25% of students who had been entered for higher on the mock be switched to foundation. This helped with tiering decisions and I think in the real thing there weren’t that many students who fell off the bottom on higher.

I don’t think Science teachers had this sort of info? What it shows is that Michael Gove was a fucking idiot. The changes should have been piloted to avoid situations like this, and he was told that.

noblegiraffe · 21/08/2018 09:30

A 3-3 is a pass, anything above a U is a pass.

The waters were muddied for the new GCSE with the whole standard pass and strong pass thing, but it all started with the C grade cliff-edge on the old GCSE. GCSEs were designed to be accessible to the majority of students, and thus be able to be passed by the majority of students. The C was supposed to be equivalent to an old O-level pass, not to be the GCSE pass grade.

JufusMum · 21/08/2018 09:22

I don't understand this at all - a 3-3 is still not a pass so how does this help anyone?

Original poster
Cathpot · 21/08/2018 09:21

I note that they are refusing to say how many pupils this involved- it must have been a sizeable number for this sort of last minute panic. Now I’m wondering what this means for the foundation grade boundaries, part of the reason lots of colleagues went for higher was that foundation grade boundaries seemed disproportionately hard. I have never been this nervous before results day.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 21/08/2018 01:14

Oh well done Ofqual for ‘saving’ pupils from those useless teachers who entered them for the ‘wrong’ tier.

FFS teachers have been working their arses off for these kids, tier of entry decisions are never easy but for a totally new exam where standards aren’t set and everyone is blundering about in the dark?

17% for a 4 on higher tier maths last year. Surely with grade boundaries that low it’s understandable why some science teachers thought higher tier the better bet for borderline kids. There have been sleepless nights about tier of entry decisions no doubt and to paint teachers as the problem here is appalling reporting.