Raw score and grades etc

What's your question op? Should say the figures i quoted were AQA and will vary by board as well.

Yes as others have said, the marks needed fir a certain grade will vary by subject and by year.

My subject is MFL and like maths, there is a foundation and higher paper - so the mark needed for a 4 on the higher paper seems very low, but in fact it's a much harder paper.

Most subjects only have one tier tho, even English.

There can be dramatic variation for example, the mark my Dd gained in A level French got her a C, where the same mark in German (exactly the same exam spec) would have been a B.

The last grade boundaries are for 2019 when 86 out of 160 would have got a 5 in English lang, 169 out of 240 a 5 in French F tier, 74 out of 240 a 5 in maths H tier...you get the idea

It's set at cohort level. So if the cohort as a whole are smarter, the grade boundary gets adjusted accordingly so the grade reflects the ability of the child. In other words a grade 7 no matter when achieved, should reflect the same standard, even so some years the raw score to achieve that 7 will have been much lower, or the exam much harder.

I think it's called criterion referenced as opposed to norm referenced where grades are allocated on a bell curve with fixed percentage getting each grade.

IMO there's no easy way to relate percentages to grade at GCSE. It's even worse in subjects where there are higher/foundation papers as you can what sounds like pretty low percentages on the higher paper and still end up with a pretty good grade.

DC's school said that you should just concentrate on getting as many marks as possible and not think about what grade that might be ... on the basis that it varies by cohort anyway. That said, the school should be giving you general information "this looks like a 7". If he's at the start of his GCSE course (end of Year 9?) the other complication is that some schools will start assessing based on GCSE style questions, so he can expect to do pretty badly at first as he's not sufficiently advanced (he's got 2 years to improve; he won't be getting top marks yet!). Other schools grade based against lower standards (expected standards at a point in time), so it might be possible to get high marks now but they aren't directly relatable to GCSE grades.

@Taxiparent was i right that its done on fixed percentage per cohort or have I got that completely wrong?

I started to Google but I'm finding it hard to wade through the stuff about grading procedures this year

Hi there,
The grade boundaries will vary for each subject and exam board. The best thing to do is to get the info for each subject and then look on the exam board websites to check the grade boundaries from 2016-19, this will give you a rough idea of where each grade lies, but they do change each year.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert

My understanding of GCSE grading is that all exams/coursework gets marked and then the exam board decides the cut off for each grade. This is based on a percentage so eg the top 8% will get a 9 in biology each year (totally made up figure BTW) but in year a. that might mean you need 76% overall but in year b you might need 80%.

At first glance, that might seem unfair if you end up in a tougher year but in reality it makes minimal difference and is also an acknowledgement than exam papers themselves might be more/less difficult.

That's what Ive always assumed is the case but I have no idea of its true or not. Hopefully someone better informed than me will post.