League Tables using Grade 5 as a "pass" for GCSE?

There needs to be further clarification clearly as there is still confusion surrounding the grade boundaries.

My ds is in year 11 and he sat his GCSE English Lit last summer in year 10. He hated 2/3 set novels but revised so hard and memorised his 20 poems etc.
He has AS and anxiety and as he's always masked his troubles throughout school he was not given any extra time etc which could have made the difference to him ( and we've requested it for this year ) and he got a grade 4.

This may not sound like a big achievement but he had a nightmare of a day on one of the exams. He saw a huge spider ( a tarantula according to him ) next to his foot and couldn't settle and then when it was removed and he started the paper, he wrote so much detail that he didn't even finish half of the paper!
I was immensely proud of his grade 4 and think what he could have got if he had completed the exam, probably a 5 at least.

So many of his friends were predicted high grades and didn't even pass with a 4.
He's all too aware that the college he really wants ( one of the top 10 sixth form colleges in the U.K. ) wants grade 5's but they have said they are flexible to a point as his chosen A level subjects are the ones he's expected to get 7/8 in at GCSE.

I hope other colleges and schools are as flexible as it's wrong to write a 15yr old off for having a slightly "wrong" number.

Yes, that was a nonsense statement! We don't 'enter' students for a Level 2 qualification. We enter them for GCSE!

they are fail from from the level 2 qualification they were entered for

A GCSE is a L1/2 qualification not just L2

I’m so tired of all this data driving schools. My son is dyslexic and failing on his eng Lang. Despite being 2 grades below a pass and 2 below his prediction based on ks2 SATs he is not deemed underperforming enough to warrant the extra intervention sessions.

I can well imagine they are focusing on the higher achievers who are underperforming rather than the ones who just need to pass to secure their post 16 options.

It was the same at primary - all the extra sessions were for kids on the 4/5, 5/6 boundary.

They do give give you a level 1 qualification but lets stop with they are passes, they are fail from from the level 2 qualification they were entered for

We need qualifications which meet the needs of all students. Writing off 50% of kids as having failed is ridiculous.

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Correction to my above post

You could equally well say that making 5% a pass and everyone getting 9s raises achievement.

Doesn't the point stand though, that if the government want to raise standards, the level required to be considered a 'pass' or whatever you want to call it must be higher?

Why on earth would that raise achievement? Do you imagine all these teachers and students aren't trying and just moving the goalposts will change the real outcome? You could equally well say that making 5% and everyone getting 9s raises achievement.

Raising the quality of teaching is what would raise achievement.

In fact the new scores have lowered achievement in the short term (as shown by the very low grade boundaries on last years exams) because the system to spend a lot of effort adapting to the changes (at a cost to teaching standards).

There is a good chance to think it will permanently lower standards for two reasons:

1. The new exams are geared to have harder questions and lower scores for passes, but research shows that this is demotivational and gets poorer outcomes. So those lower grade boundaries don't really represent the same achievement claimed- just the same number of kids.

1. The new baseline achievement for '50% get 4 or above' has been set at a time of unprecedented cuts when quality of teaching has suffered rapid decline- setting a very low standard. When, in 5 years or so, the government trumpets massive improvements in achievement it may simply be that actual achievement is simply returning to normal.

So perhaps people should stop with the suggestion that a grade 3 is not a GCSE pass?

That's why the IGCSEs were called level 1/2 certificates for use in England.

A GCSE is a level 1/2 qualification. Grades 1-3 are passes at level 1. Grades 4-9 are passes at level 2.

Thefallenmadonna, grades 1-3 are not level 2 passes which is what the students were entered for. They do give give you a level 1 qualification but lets stop with they are passes, they are fail from from the level 2 qualification they were entered for

it has mixed up our LA performance tables quite significantly.

You mean schools are being ordered by Progress 8? That’s awful.

Although it is useful when comparing selective and non-selective schools.

Really? You don't think a school should be ranked above on a difference of 0.01 when the confidence intervals are 0.5ish?? No, not the official ones. Just the "we are number # in the county". An extra layer of confusion for everyone.

Pick a measure. Don't rank schools.

it has mixed up our LA performance tables quite significantly.

You mean schools are being ordered by Progress 8? That’s awful.

And also what piggy said!

It might be "simpler" but it is a very blunt instrument with which to measure how well a school does with the children it has. Which is surely the useful thing to know? There are all sorts of issues with P8, but I much prefer it to attainment measures, and it has mixed up our LA performance tables quite significantly.

I think the 4 should be included wombat because it is a 'standard pass'! It is the grade required to porgress in life to college, apprenticeships, employment and even university. So, why are schools - and only schools, being measured against a higher standard?

I think schools should show progress and attainment, which they do on their websites and the government also shows, with a stronger focus it seems on Progress 8.

The thing is, lots of people don't understand Progress and everyone can understand basic attainment if expressed clearly. Some parents will look beyond just raw results when choosing schools, but others won't or can't. Looking at the Progeess 8 figures and looking at the data under Prior Attainment is really useful for giving a rounder picture of a school, but lots of people don't know that exists, aren't interested or don't know how to interpret the data. It's good that more data is available, but many people only want something very simple and raw results or no.s gaining 5 5-9 r 5 5-9 or gaining maths and English at 5-9 are simple to udbertsand. Showing progress will always be difficult for some people to understand.

Mind you, I have noticed that local papers tend to go for attainment rather than progress when they report on "best schools".

Again, grades 1-3 are passes. This is the problem with the whole "good pass, strong pass" thing.

Universities and colleges can easily tell the difference between a level 1 and a level 2 pass, and do, because you have to give your grade, not just a pass/fail. And they can set their own admission requirements. Where it really matters is GCSE resits, which does use the grade 4 cut off. But level 2 pass would suffice for that too.

And the performance measure on which schools are ranked (progress 8) uses all grades. A level 1 pass (eg a grade 3) could still give a positive P8 if it is a higher grade than the average achieved by children with the same KS2 starting points. Similarly a grade 6 could give a negative P8 if lower than the average from that starting point. Do you think attainment rather than progress should be the focus?

Okay, I'm happy to admit an error in saying some who get a 4 wouldn't have got a C at old GCSE. It isn't right, plus it's very hard to tell when the specifications are different with different content.

Doesn't the point stand though, that if the government want to raise standards, the level required to be considered a 'pass' or whatever you want to call it must be higher? Isn't it harder to now get 100 in KS2 SATS than old L4 and likewise a 5 is harder than a C. The fact that lots of children don't achieve a 5 or any particular grade isn't the point, if it is decided the pass standard is a 5. Of course whether a 5 should be the pass standard is a another question. And I know that for lots a 4 or 3 might be a big achievement, but that doesn't mean it has to be apcategorised as a pass for statistical purposes which are measuring attainment. It also doesn't mean that colleges or universities should have to accept the lower grade if if doesn't show suitability for the next course.

I think the issue is about providing suitable and useful courses for those who can't/don't get the 5 or 4, rather than wanting to include lower grades in school data which measures attainment.

And incidentally, although the he headline data is L5 in Englaih and Maths plus Ebacc, the government pages for each school also DO show the figures for L4 and above, plus all the info about prior attainment is there too, along with Progress 8, so it is possible to look at the value a school adds and not just its raw attainment.

I realise that for the children and teachers who get a 4 or a 3, being told they haven't passed is demoralising. So was being told you hadn't got a C and that a D was a fail.

For those who think a 4 should be used, I'd be interested to know why that is - is it because you think a higher % of the population should be passed, or is it becaue you think a 4 demonstrates a skill level which is pretty decent and warrants a pass, or is there another reason? Just interested.

fallen : I so agree with you! Massively grinds my gears, too.

60/270. Maths teacher

I looked at the Eduqas Maths which is only two papers as there is always a risk that our kids won't turn up for one of the papers (happened last year!). But most of our kids also find it really hard to stay in the exam room for more than 30 mins tops, no matter how long the paper is, so 90/270 is better than 30/270 in terms of coverage...

They announced it as grade 5 is pass, and admitted at the time that it was ahigher level than C.

But the uproar at raising the level, and the realisation that it was not achievable by many made them reduce it to 4.

But at the same time they said that was temporary, and they expected it to go back to a 5 after a year or two.
Now there doesn't seem to be a timeline for a change to 5.

But according to the original tables released, a 4 is lower than a C, so I can see why they wanted a 5.

The same percentage of kids who got a C now get a 4, it’s not about pegging standards, but pegging percentage pass rates.

It doesn’t mean that the same kids who would have got a C would now get a 4 as different skills are tested. Resilience and endurance over 3 maths papers instead of 2 actually makes a difference.