In a class of 30 doing GCSE Art, how many would you expect to get 7,8 or 9?

7+ I’d say the top 20% of the class have a chance with that.

with art there’s contextualising your own work, even at GCSE (I remember it well!) and that pushes you into higher grades. So it’s not just your own artistic talent that’s required.

I did a drawing for my final piece whereas everyone else did really out there stuff and I was looked down on by my peers for that choice. I’d done all my experimenting and mixed media work all through my sketchbooks and test pieces and just couldn’t get them to work and I wrote about why in my sketchbook and that I’d go back to drawing.

I know others on the class were shocked and frustrated I’d got the A just for a sketch and they did paintings etc and got Bs and Cs but it was my supporting work and reasoning that got me there.

My DD didn’t like GCSE but you cannot do art and just expect to draw. There IS more to it than that. Lots of dc don’t realise it but the good teachers persuade them how important the written notes are. If they want to do art at uni it’s even more important. The portfolio isn’t just a few drawings and nothing else. It really requires greater depth of thought. DD did a portfolio during y13 A levels too. If you went this career, you have to do what’s required. Not what you like. A level can be much more creative.

My DS is predicted a 6 in art, and the teacher told him he has to touch up his portfolio over this weekend and he could get higher. He said he's 'the worst artist in the class' but his work looks pretty good to me, and he is a bit of a fatalistic when it comes to art. It has taken him hours and hours to do the portfolio. It's a massive PITA and he hasn't enjoyed it at all. It seems to be designed to suck all spontaneity and creativity out of children. The saddest thing is that, from when he was a child, he used to draw. I have books upon books of beautiful pen drawings he did. Now, he doesn't pick up a pencil if it's not for his art gcse, he doesn't want to do A Level and its completely put him off a career he had wanted to do for a long time. It's his least favourite subject, which really is saying something!

Last year, the highest grades in my ds were 6s. Art teacher said they've made the criteria so hard to get a really high grade.

My DD did old GCSE art and got a B. Very loose teaching and little direction. Changed school for A levels. Huge huge difference. Fantastic teachers who taught techniques. Not just endless experimenting. All areas were properly taught, including all the writing up. DD got A for art and Astar for photography. Yes, she spent a lot of time doing art but with first class teaching it was a pleasure.

It's not just raw artistic skill that gains top grades. You have to also be able to explain your work, show experimentation and understanding of what makes a piece successful, linking it to the work of other artists, and record all of this too. This much work takes a huge amount of time and commitment.

Selective school?

in DC's school there is a large proportion of DC who don't get as high as a 7 in anything.

Another point to throw into the variance mix is how the school enables selection of options. At DC's school the option blocs are such that you have to select at least one "creative" option - which means students selecting art who might have otherwise swerved it.

I just think what a shit teacher if you keep telling a student they're on track for an 8 or 9 and then you mark them as a 7

What sort of crappy teaching is that if you can physically see with your own eyes what bloody art work they're doing

I found it incomprehensible really

My DD was expecting an 8

She only got a 7

She was upset

Even her A level teachers said she definitely deserved an 8 if not a 9

There was even an external examiner who kept it at a 7

She's been told she's on track for at least an A for the same A Level art subject

Its not an easy area to get an 8 or 9 in unless your teacher has been generous and your school didn't get an external examiner to check the mark.

It would very much depend on the school - % 7-9 grades do vary massively school to school, so it's hard to generalise.

I did used to line manage the head of the art department when I was an assistant head in a school, and I have to say it seemed to me (a total lay-person with no artistic background or skill) that the standard required even to get a C grade (as it was then) was exceptionally high. It's one of the reasons I am currently tempted to discourage my KS3 daughter from pursuing art when she comes to pick her options. She is decent at drawing but not exceptional, and I just think she would do better in other subjects, as art seems so very difficult. It's the same with music - or always used to be anyway.

It's actually quite hard to get a 9 in any art GCSE subject

This is because the teacher has to mark it

Her marks then get assessed by an external examiner and if they consistently over mark they get in trouble

Therefore they make sure it's bang on

The external examiner will increase the mark as necessary

I would hazard a guess at this being a selective school.

She isn't judged against the rest of her class though. She is marked against a mark scheme and against a national cohort.
She may be the best but still only achieving a level 6. At another school a student may be the worst in that class and get a 6 because others are better.

I remember in my school there were some (maybe 15) kids who seemed to just muck about in most lessons.
They chose RE, art, and design and technology - not because they were particularly gifted at those but
RE - because the teachers weren't able to control the class and didn't give detentions
Ditto design and tech
Art - because they thought it would be easy (and - to a degree you can spend as little or as long as you like on a piece) But it is obvious at exhibition time the pieces that have been done in half an hour and the ones that have taken hours.

Totally depends on the cohort. One class on year May have a lot of more able pupils and some more mixed ability. Happens with year groups too. National quotas are only applicable to the nation as a whole and not a class of 30.

of course they do well as no one would choose to do them unless they were good at them

@theresnolimits you might choose a subject bc you liked it. Or bc there was nothing you liked and this was the least worst, or you thought it might be the easiest. Weaker students have to choose options too. I've taught MFL GCSE to students who weren't very good at any school subject sadly.

Tho i agree English is a challenge as all must do it and there are no tiers now.

In my school, a cohort of around 50 kids normally get 55-60% grade 9, the rest are 7 and 8 with a couple of 6 every year. It is only taken by very keen students.

as someone else has said, there is a lot more to art gcse than artistic ability!

I taught primary but I’ve taught primary classes where the ‘strongest’ might only be average when compared to the national standard.

strongest in a class doesn’t mean anything useful, really. Big fish, small pond.

Gosh, I’m really surprised at this. In my school art was always the highest performing A level and one of the highest at GCSE. That’s because at GCSE it is an option and no one took it unless they were good at it and enjoyed it.

In my subject (English Lang and Lit) as core GCSEs, everyone had to take them whether they could do it or not. So we scored much more poorly than subjects like art.

I’m now going to revisit this because maybe we just had amazing art teachers judging by their results. All that time complaining and saying ‘It’s all right for Art/Tech/ PE/MFL … of course they do well as no one would choose to do them unless they were good at them’.

I don’t know much about art grades these days but both my parents and DB are better artists than I am painting and drawing wise.

When I was in one secondary school back in 1980s my best friend there was great at art, predicted to get the best grade and was teacher’s pet. The male art teacher was a right old pervert though taking underage students to pubs and dating them, he was at least 40 or 30 plus. It really put me off trying hard there as he’d touch girls up including me and make inappropriate comments and I thought I wasn’t great at art as a result.

Then I went to a private school for a few years and we had your typical boho woman art teacher who actually encouraged me and gave me attention. I passed GCSE with what was then a B pass. She’d told me if I’d been there longer with her I’d have probably have got an A.

The right teacher really does help.

Well, in the school I know best, last year 69% of pupils got a 9, 27% got an 8 and 4% got a 7. Cohort of around 50.

I'm so bored i just googled the grade distribution for the aqa art gcse last year.

Seemed to suggest 20% grades 7-9, so in a 'perfect' class id go with 6 pupils getting more than a 6.

But thats a bit silly as things never quite work out in real life

In 1988 the first year of GCSE's, no one in my year passed art GCSE at grade C or above. No one.
Maybe because the art teacher was too busy playing rock music and focusing on his own work during classes.

@GrumpyMuleFan - most of it wasn't actually changing what the students did. It was partly that there is a tolerance when your marking is moderated. You could grade up to one grade either side of the moderated grade and not have the grades changed. For us that meant we were marking a bit harshly and not being upgraded on moderation (the head of department was a bit of a dragon), but we moved to marking more leniently, but within the tolerance, so our more lenient marking wasn't challenged. The other bit was referring to exemplar marked work from the exam board in our marking, not just the mark scheme. Often the mark scheme said you needed 6 items in a section, but their exemplar marked work only had 4 of the items and was awarded full marks. I hadn't understood how it was possible to squeeze everything ftom the mark scheme into the word count, but the answer was that it wasn't possible or necessary.

I'm not sure that can really help a student/parent as it is about teachers playing the game. But all of the mark schemes and requirements are probably on the exam board website - so you could read them and see whether the coursework looks like it will tick the boxes.