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Original poster

Mock results and grade predictions using previous grade boundaries

39 replies

Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 10:56

DD has mocks in January and parents evening this week.

All but the history teacher gave grade results based on last year’s grade boundaries, having used last year’s papers and mark schemes. A couple of teachers told us they’d slightly raised the boundaries, to allow for a 5% movement this year.

However, the history teacher appears to have given arbitrary grades, telling us that he “doesn’t get involved in the dark arts of how the government set grade boundaries, because every exam will be a success”.
When asked whether his headings generally match actual outcome in the GCSE exam for his students, he said he doesn’t analyse that either.

As it happens, going by last year’s grade boundaries, DD was one mark off an 8, but the teacher gave her a 6 and a “working at” grade of 5.
Because of how hard she worked for the history mock, DD is now considering dropping it, because it is such a huge time drain to revise for only to get a 5 in, when she’s not taking it at A level and has other subjects she could concentrate on.

My question is, is the history teacher right not to use previous grade boundaries, and if so, how does any teacher know what year 11 students are likely to achieve?

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Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 19:13

Cat, I take your point, and in fact, DD's English teacher did say that they track pupils and actually, their tracking is pretty accurate. In the case of the English mocks, all students' papers were marked by both teachers, separately, and marks moderated accordingly.

However, the first thing we were handed on the final parents' meeting before GCSEs was an envelope with mock results 1-9, working at grades 1-9, and target grades 1-9, and each subsequent conversation with individual subject teachers was based on that.

Much is made here, and elsewhere, of students generally going up one grade between mocks and the real exams. Ditto aiming to get good enough grades to be able to go on to the next stage in education. If no-one has any idea how long that particular piece of string is, how can that happen?

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noblegiraffe · 16/02/2020 18:47

Then why give predicted grades at all.

Cat0115 · 16/02/2020 18:41

The history teacher has a point, though. Each cohort determines the grade boundaries. The most important information from mocks is the feedback on each question on how to improve. If you really want to hound them about it, find out who the data person is on SLT. Ask them for the mocks versus actual outcomes for the last 3 years. Unless each dept has GCSE examiners standardising (for subjective disciplines like History and English especially) each teacher and they've done a full paper for every subject then the mocks really are a bit of a paper exercise. Teachers have a better chance of predicting a child's height in August than their result.

Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 15:09

Aaargh! gradings, NOT headings!!

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Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 14:38

noble, that's basically the conclusion I 'd come to! I tried to press him on it - if he refused to use grade boundaries as an indicator, what DID he use? - but he didn't give me an answer.
If I'm to ignore ground boundaries, by the same token, I should ignore his headings as well.

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Whatelsecouldibecalled · 16/02/2020 14:14

From a teaching point of view many teachers err on the side of caution when it comes to mock exam results. The teacher is right in a way the government screws the kids over at any opportunity with grade boundaries. Sounds like your DD is working super hard, well done her, but for some kids giving a ‘higher’ grade a mock in jan means they will slack off their revision and work ethic thinking they have ‘nailed it’ already. Doesn’t sounds like your DF would do this just offering another train of thought. Finally lots of schools will absolutely use exam grades as stick to beat staff with and so many predict lower than they actually think because in terms of brutal performance management it’s always better to have better results than worse.

Good luck to your DD

noblegiraffe · 16/02/2020 13:59

However, the history teacher appears to have given arbitrary grades, telling us that he “doesn’t get involved in the dark arts of how the government set grade boundaries, because every exam will be a success”. When asked whether his headings generally match actual outcome in the GCSE exam for his students, he said he doesn’t analyse that either

Sounds like you can safely dismiss his predictions as uninformed bollocks then.

Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 13:35

crazy, I'm going to encourage DD to carry on with history, as she's put the work in this far. I will admit, I am really quite cross with her teacher because he did nothing to reassure her or recognise her efforts, and didn't offer anything useful, other than "work harder".
She got a 9 in chemistry, but the teacher gave her a working at grade of 8 because DD was right at the start of the 9 boundary - fair enough.

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Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 13:27

Sabine, that's really helpful, thanks.
As you say, we'd rather have a pleasant surprise than a horrible shock, when opening results in August, so slight undermarking by teachers is a good thing.
The problem with this particular teacher is that he's really undermined DD's confidence by telling us that she did badly in a particular paper, when I can see she got one mark below an 8 in it. Of course, ideally, she'd focus on improving to get a secure 8, but actually, she worked really hard to get the mark that she did and would be happy with a 7 in August. The problem is that the teacher has given the impression that she'll get a 6, and in her friend's case, he told her she done much worse in the mocks, which has actually resulted in her deciding not to take the exam.

Another parent wondered whether certain teachers are keeping down mock grades, in order to be able to make a big deal of their students exceeding predictions in the final exams.

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crazycrofter · 16/02/2020 13:11

@Alsoplayspiccolo we’ve had the same in history and biology - her mock grads would have just been a 9 for biology but the teacher marked it as a 7 and gave her a working at grade of 6. All very annoying but dd said girls in the year above have told her the mocks were graded low and they all got better grades in the real things, so she’s not too worried.

I wouldn’t give up History if she did that well (percentage wise) on the mock. It is a huge subject but it sounds like she’ll get an 8 or 9 on current performance!

SabineSchmetterling · 16/02/2020 12:54

I teach history and tend to use last years grade boundaries and then raise them by a few marks. That being said, I don’t think that the grade boundaries matter as much as the marks. Which marks is your DD dropping and does she know where she’s going wrong? Mock exams are far more important as a learning experience than as tool for predicting final grades.
To a certain degree I think he’s right that the grade boundaries are irrelevant. Like your daughter’s school we tend to use last year’s paper for the mocks. A lot of the more savvy kids predict this and have usually looked it up online and revised to that test paper. Their marks are often a lot higher than what they would have got if they’d sat that paper without any clue as to what might come up.
If the marks she got would have scored a grade 8 last summer then she’s doing very well. I’d also say don’t be fooled into thinking subjects that are more confident in their grade boundaries and predictions are any more accurate. If anything I’d be warier of subjects that claim that they can precisely grade mock exams. Grade boundaries can change and, even more importantly, the accuracy of the grade boundaries is irrelevant if the teachers aren’t marking to the same standard set at standardisation by the exam boards last summer. Schools will often standardise marking within the school, but there’s a good chance that they are marking to a different standard than the exam board used. I know that we definitely marked to a stricter standard for certain questions this year than the board did last summer, as we got some 2019 papers back and were very surprised by how generously source utility questions were marked.

Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 11:10

She had 3/4 of the papers in history, but the grade boundaries for each paper are published.

The teacher told us that previous grade boundaries are irrelevant because they are based on that year’s cohort. Fair enough, but all the other subject teachers are basing their mock results on them, so who do we listen to?

The GCSE history content is HUGE. DD probably spent longer on that than any other subject; we have no idea what the reality is of how well she’s doing.

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Hercwasonaroll · 16/02/2020 10:59

Did she do a full mock or part of one?

Has he (foolishly) tried to encourage more revision by grading students lower?

I'd tell her to keep putting in the effort otherwise she'll be annoyed on results day.

Original poster
Alsoplayspiccolo · 16/02/2020 10:57

gradings, not headings.

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