Y11 2023/24 thread 5 - results!

The school should be able to provide you that info, we got it in with the exam results envelope. I don't believe they actually remark though just review. Does an 8 or 9 make a difference for college? It's worth speaking to the teacher first to see what they think.

My DCs did the Cambridge English which is 50% coursework. They did it in school supervised and the teachers can see if they access it on the drive outside of school so certainly neither of mine had additional help. They do get feedback after a draft but it's minimal. My DS1 did really well in the coursework, 9, 8, 8 then got a 7 overall so the exam can't have been that easy, he was a mark off an 8 but we didn't get a review as a 7 is really good. DS2 got 5s in course and 5 overall. He had no interest in adding more to his coursework to get higher and the school/us let him do that as its the grade he deserved.

I definitely think the coursework for English makes sense, it is a great way to assess the Eng lang ability. I hate the exam only GCSEs and think there should be more half and half ones. It does rely on really good teaching though, my DC have done some vocational ones at school and due to some extremely poor teaching have been severly let down with the coursework elements and have had to scrape their marks up through the exams which are worth sometimes less than half.

Well something has obviously gone wrong with AQA. English results! Will anyone actually do anything about it though…

Year 12 - 2024/25 - Support, Discussion and Looking After Each Other http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/5148656-year-12-202425-support-discussion-and-looking-after-each-other

For discussion beyond GCSE results

Dd 2 marks form 9 in English language is it worth remarking and how much does it cost

@Muchtoomuchtodo yes gove banned them from state schools when GCSEs were reformed and made harder. Private schools can still choose them, or choose them for certain subjects. Certainly the local private schools near me use them, and my friends who go there openly admit to supporting their dcs who need it with the English coursework. Because of course you do.

inews.co.uk/news/education/igcse-private-school-benefits-education-reform-386152?srsltid=AfmBOopdWtQh-nXrriPnhMOqrSooqmgAK4uoMKwCkstpW2ORMBJQ9db0

Just to say that DC at an indie school and they do bog standard GCSEs. I don't know any in our area that do iGCSEs.

@Rumplestiltz are iGCSE only available to private schools? State schools don’t have it as an option at all? Do you know why this is? We saw in Covid when then were teacher based assessments and grades how inflated their grades were. I can only imagine that this happens every year with the igcse.

@Midnightstar76 it's such a relief isn't it? Well done to your DD!

@FerminRomeroDeTorres After DD's GCSE results collection I actually wrote to her school and complained/suggested improvements.

My view was that vulnerable kids who had done less well than hoped should have an indicator against their name and a member of pastoral staff or whoever available when they opened their results. Duty of care to the end.

DD did the same board for English Language and got a 5 over the moon for her as struggles academically

@FerminRomeroDeTorres

they are in a selective grammar school, and are a particularly good year group

So that school isn't concerned about keeping good students for sixth form and there aren't very many struggling.

Schools are desperate to keep their high achievers as they need the funding and good results encourage others to attend that sixth form.

I don't agree with it and there should be support for all students but you can see why from a business point of view why in schools where less kids did well they are keen to get them signed up to sixth form

DS was AQA English. Had been a high 6 for lang in mocks, got 7. Lit consistently high 8 in mocks, got a low 7. So a drop but not a massive one.

His combined Science grades were several grades below mocks and he thought papers went well so that was main shock for him.

Some teachers are pompous doom-mongers. DS’s school has no 6th form. Had to race round 6th forms by bus in rain to get him sorted on a course when he hadn’t done great. He was white and in a daze. I had to challenge one teacher at a middle-class favoured school who patronisingly said (after we’d waited over an hour in utter chaos) the 3 in English Language was not only a bar to entering their school, but would be for uni and employers too. No solution (e.g. he can retake it while starting an A level). Just negativity in front of obviously devastated DS.

In contrast, arriving at college were met at door by lovely head, who said don’t worry, not a problem. We’ll make sure you pass the retake and you can go straight onto BTEC level 3 if you want, which means you can be studying law at uni in two years. I wonder how many kids have given up on further education due to insensitive, negative teachers.

It’s AQA English Language DS got a 3 in. Loves English and worked so hard. Got a 4 in the Lit. Reading this thread, I feel like a super-complaint to AQA. There are clearly a lot of kids who’ve been disappointed and set back by that one. Do AQA make money from the reviews?

English lang shock here but the other way. WJEC board. DS got 3 in mock and just hoping for a 4. Papers didn't go well and one question unanswered altogether. Got a 6! All of us still stunned.

All these comments about schools only bothering with the high achieving pupils makes me so cross. It is ridiculously unfair, and just plain wrong. My DD did very well yesterday, as did the majority of her year group - they are in a selective grammar school, and are a particularly good year group. There were certainly plenty of pupils chatting to teachers outside yesterday and hearing congratulations and seeing lots of smiles.

The ONLY pupils who were given more than that, were the ones who had struggled. Anyone who was in tears, or looked shocked or upset in any way was ushered inside and given a ton of support and comfort. For everyone else, it was smiles, congratulations, and then told to phone the school later in the day to discuss changes to subject choices for next year if required.

One of DD’s friends didn’t get the grades she had been hoping for and is now rethinking her choices for next year. The reality is, that she didn’t do enough work - she’s a bit of a messer and just didn’t knuckle down enough. She knows that, her parents know that, the school knows that - absolutely no-one berated her yesterday - the school offered her nothing but support, comfort and encouragement. Equally an another girl who busted a gut through some really awful health struggles, also didn’t achieve what she’d hoped for - through absolutely no fault of her own - she received the exact same support, comfort and encouragement. THAT’S how it should be done.

So interesting reading all the stories on English! Everyone I know had a bit of a shock with unexpected results and generally a 2 mark drop from predicted/mock - all different schools (but all AQA)....... DS was disappointed with his yesterday but seems to be fine now, his other results were amazing so it's trying to make him focus on all of them than the one that went a bit wrong!

It's so stressful and hard for these kids, their education has been frankly a mess for a lot of the last 5 years and I think they have coped admirably and should be bloody proud of themselves

That’s not on. You’d think the staff would have highlighted on paper which students they needed to meet with been they arrived, checked for shocks and made a plan. I’m so sorry.
I would get a tutor and bash it out in November so he can focus on the new courses

Absolutely nothing. He was just told to still head over to sixth form enrollment and they'd let him know his options. Only option he was given was a resit. They seemed to be focusing more on getting interviews with the ones who achieved highly.

But do they really allow for much choice? In English Lit ds studied the exact same 3 set texts dh did and he's 50 this year and couldn't that be done within one board? I know that school funding is shocking and don't know how funding works for exam entry but if that was standardised and centralised would that not be better? Maybe I'm over simplifying and just conjecturing in my naivety.

Absolutely agree. A 6 to a 3 is a huge drop. What did his teacher say?

I totally agree and it’s been the one thing that has really angered me this year!

@Peggy0907 I would ask if the school can look at the script at least. 3 grades below predicted and having to resit, you have nothing to lose really. By not resitting he'l would have an extra 3hrs a week for more interesting activity.

The other big discrepancy in English will be between the igcse and gcse, with private schools being able to sit the former and which is 50% coursework for language and 40 % for literature, which means teacher assessed marks in the bag and less to revise and practice for the actual exam. It’s incredibly unfair for such a critical gcse that this divide exists.

@Peggy0907 if he's going to resit, I'd suggest he gets the marked papers back so he can see where he went wrong and work on that for bect time