Exam data nerdery

Yeah, I just saw that data about bell curves and how thry squashed top grades down more thus year. Need to look it out.

I think some of the kids in my DD's separate sciences group actually did foundation rather than the higher tier. From what some of them said to DD they thought there was a chance that they'd at least get one science even if they failed the other two whereas combined might mean they got none because the really bad ones would drag the other one down! Maybe that muddies the water science wise because obviously everyone has to do science in some form and the stats don't differentiate between who took foundation and who took higher.

I think there must also be something in the fact hat in maths you can choose not to teach all the content, this freeing up time for reinforcement of weaker topics . In every non tiered subject you have to teach all content - there's no special extra for grades 8/9 and nothing you can't teach.

In theory only in my head this might man more very top grades in maths and perhaps a better chance of getting grade 4 because you are just taught no more than you need to know.

Conversely, I can see it might hold back some students who, because of the set they are in, perhaps, don't access content they could actually grasp.

If there were to be a foundation paper, we'd almost certainly end up back to setting - which I am not for. There's no easy solution.

I think it should be shown much earlier maybe year 9 when they have started their option subjects. Also the expected parental contribution for uni too with salary bands and smelling salts to revive parents after they faint I think parents should be informed early on.

I had a Cambridge Assessment report from 2010, not sure if there is a more up to date one that showed the progression from GCSE to A levels grades wise. Here for any other nerds https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/153531-progression-from-gcse-to-as-and-a-level-2010-.pdf

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn As published above maths is a hard A level from a 7 at GCSE and you can see why. I am sure @noblegiraffe will correct me if I am wrong but DC's sat OCR maths, we were told that 50% of the higher paper determines grades 7-9 meaning you can achieve a 7 without potentially having 50% of the maths knowledge secure This then makes it harder at A level. Both of my sons had solid grade 9s and have found A level maths relatively easy because they didn't struggle in class. They also did/are doing further maths A level too.

My DC's school pick and choose their exam boards, OCR for maths and computer science, Edexcel for Statistics, Educas for English Language and AQA for everything else.

@MrsHamlet do you feel there should be a foundation paper for English Language? Mine did really well but I can imagine it is soul destroying for some children to have a paper that covers all ranges.

It's always generally been the case that more kids do better at lit than language.

This is fascinating! Have I understood correctly that more kids did better at Eng Lit than Eng Lang? I’m assuming kids usually take both? When I did O levels only the brightest did Literature.

I’m blown away by the fact that kids do better at Maths than at English - maths has such a reputation for being disliked.

Are the % grades for A level similar across all boards? That is, is the AQA chart posted pretty representative?

That does seem to be what various data suggests. It conversely also pushes bottom upwards, so producing more 3s.

So does that mean that every year 2.9% (roughly) of eng lan candidates get 9s and 13% of chemistry candidates get 9s and the boundaries for marks move around to enable this? So many parents on here seem to be saying that their children have been predicted a 9 in lang but only got a 5/6 but is it just that other kids around the country maybe did better than expected and pushed the predicted 9s downwards?

English Lang is completely untiered and everyone does it!

I wondered the same thing. I am not a teacher but I assume that it reflects the fact that usually only the strongest science students do separate sciences. The English 9 %s do look very low.

Is that not simply because everyone does English Lang, while Chemistry is only done by the brightest kids - most others do double award/combined science?

I thought I understood grade boundaries but reading some of the data I realise I don't! How can only 2.9 % of eng lan grades be 9 whereas for Chemistry, 13% are 9? Have I completely misunderstood how it works?

Any number of reasons.

More teachers with experience of that board.

Might seem to have better results.

Might supply better resources.

That's the board they've always used.

Course seems better.

Everyone of my sons exams was AQA apart from History and Maths which is Edexcel. What's the reason for this does anyone know?

I use Eduqas too. It's the only board at GCSE for my subject.

Can I ask a (what’s probably daft) question about exam boards? Someone mentioned it not being great having a single exam board but in the country that I come from, that’s what we have, but it’s run by the department of education, so there’s no private companies involved. They even critique the paper in the national press after it’s been sat 😂 Would that not be a better option? Everyone sits the same paper on the same day and there’s no potential for gaming the system if there’s any sort of perceived/real “easier” exam board? Or maybe I’m being a bit naive and missing something (apart from private companies losing out on lots of government contracts of course)

We use Eduqas (not Maths but Music) because its content best suits our students. We used to be with OCR prior to GCSEs being reformed but the new stuff in their GCSE was baffling and includes things I genuinely know bugger all about (from memory, Middle Eastern music???) Ditto for AQA. Edexcel always used to be the most popular exam board but we would need to buy anthologies to study their set works and simply couldn't afford it for the 2 year-groups who would need them. Plus you only study those 12 pieces, which seems quite sad and very boring for teachers. So we went with Eduqas which has 2 set works which you can freely download the scores but everything relates to the elements of music, the most fundamental parts. It's not perfect, and this year there has been a furore about composing marking, but seems to be the best of the bunch and has rightly risen in popularity.

If you are interested, take a look at how Music has nose-dived in terms of popularity at GCSE and A level. I personally blame Gove and the bloody EBacc for this, along with the abject job that so many primary schools do. We have to deliver everything in 5 years often from a standing start, unlike private schools, or other subjects.

Here is another great website for exam data and graphs if you are enjoying the others on this thread
https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/

@itsgettingweird 4s for T levels at our local college. 4s for various apprenticeships, Btech level 3, also for some entry paths into the police / fire service for example.

I've researched a lot of colleges and 4s are the magic number!

A lot of colleges are moving to T levels now for vocational courses. They ask for a 5 in English.

Given how few do it it won't make much of an impact I wouldn't imagine.

The A levels statistics of these schools must be boosted by this.