Tell me about good GCSEs without use of tutors

If all teachers were good and all kids had the same teacher from Year 7 to 11, then I am quite confident a lot of children would do far better, not just as regards results, but also as regards understanding a variety of subjects really well. It takes time to get to know a student and inspire them and make them passionate about a subject.

@Newbutoldfather - You can have very bright kids who just do not like Physics! It doesn’t make them weak students. Just as you can have very bright Physicists who detest English GCSE. It’s the way of the world.

What is too little spoken about it the tension between great teaching and getting great results. Schools want them to be the same, and parents on average (there are many honourable exceptions to this) care more about results than anything else. You only need to look at this discussion and many others to see this.

This is a particular weakness at private schools, acknowledged by most teachers who teach there. The parents pay the fees and they want ‘added value’, ergo the school provides it. I have got some incredibly weak pupils 7s and even 8s (you do need some ability to get a 9), but I know that 6 months into their A levels they will have forgotten 90% of their Physics. That is actually quite depressing!

At parents evening, the number of times I have been asked ‘how can I get my daughter to a 9 (or 8 or 7) is at least 50x the number of times that I have asked ‘how can I help my daughter to become a great physicist’ or even ‘how can I help to get my daughter to love Physics’.

And there is a tension between results and subject knowledge. An easy short cut is not to do (much…or even any) practical work. A teacher I knew always showed videos or simulations rather than actually getting kit out and using it. Took 5 minutes rather than 25, and he got fantastic results. But I think his pupils lost some important learning in many ways.

True @Newbutoldfather , but at some point learning to play the game in the right way, so that you get maximum output, pays in the long run. We all have to do it at work as well.

I was talking more about the step up to A level and being ready for that by really mastering the subject and feeling you do and feeling you were in control of your revision and did not run out of time -aka self confidence- and also making sure you have revisited earlier topics properly, sometimes taught in Year 9 for Sciences.

@Newbutoldfather that resonated with me. It pays to know the very specific mark schemes for the sciences.

A level biology is notorious for tripping up a lot of students, and practising on past papers really does pay dividends.

IMO it means that students need to spend a lot of time on exam technique at the expense of learning the subject.

To be honest the truly bright rarely got the very highest marks at GCSE physics (I mean the 98s va the 89s for instance).

The nearly perfect scores were reserved for the hardest workers and pupils who actually loved learning mark schemes.

The very brightest didn’t like some of the trite logic accepted by the mark scheme and gave more interesting answers, but often tripped up and made small mistakes in so doing.

When I was a teacher, I spent a lot of parents’ evenings trying to tell ‘mark grabbers’ to try and enjoy the subject more rather than the mark schemes as they would get a 9 anyway.

I’m not sure anyone sees whether it was a “high nine” or “low nine” once the results are shared do they? A nine is a nine.

We are/were at grammar school and did not have to tutor. However, we are quite used to others tutoring for the sake of it, it seems, and just ignored it. We were lucky though and had good teachers overall. Few stronger than others, but mostly of at least a good standard and some exceptional. I would have tutored if we had poor quality teaching or teacher shortages, for sure.

I think it is more important to get top grades in the subjects you wish to then study at A level. So better to get 4 x 9 and 6 x 8, but really high 9s in the 3 Sciences and Maths, if that is what you are going to do later on. The A stars at A level simply matter more. So getting 93% in your Physics GCSE and 98% in Maths (plus a Further Maths GCSE) if you do those at A level, is going to be better than getting 10 subjects at just scraped 9 and 80% in each (or whatever the 9 grade boundary is).
I always told my DC that. Do well in all your GCSEs, but try and do exceptionally well in those you are taking at A level, when the step up matters and you need to understand the content well, across the board.

So I would tutor a child who loves Physics but has been dealt a hand with a string of supply teachers only. But I would not tutor to up a 6 to a 7 or a 7 to an 8 for a subject they are going to drop anyway.

While that sounds rather remarkable @Suspendedanimations, your daughter seems to be sitting her GCSEs in bite size chunks. Four, then another four? Or have I misunderstood? I'm not saying her achievement isn't great. But there's a difference bwteeen doing it that way and nine or ten at a single sitting at 16

When DD sat GCSE maths in 2016 the iGCSE was considered more rigorous than the GCSE. Her school used to enter the top sets in for it in the January if they scored more than 75% in the November mocks.

Agree that IGCSE’s are easier. There is definitely a difference in the standard for English language

A huge part is the pressure from schools and the constant testing and targets. Plus the huge competition for places now that you are competing not just with other UK kids but internationally as well.

While I applaud what you are doing in terms of education for your child, and think it sounds a very healthy and happy option, there is quite a big difference between sitting 4 GCSEs in a session and sitting 11.

Hugely less content to have to shovel in and retain, far fewer papers to sit in that session etc. It's why universities want A levels all sat in one go rather than one a year.

@Suspendedanimations ,

Maybe I am wrong but that sounds like ‘plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose….’.

I honestly struggle to believe that she has got those grades by ‘self study’ without a huge amount of facilitation by either different forms of tutoring (including by family) and massive organisational facilitation.

If you just left a 15 year old to their own devices entirely, I struggle to believe they would even sit GCSEs.

Only on this very weird site has a discussion on tuition become a discussion on a full set of grade 9s! If you were to draw a Venn diagram between tutored children and full sets of 9s, the intersect would be vanishingly small. The vast majorities of tutored kids are tutored as they need the extra help, not just for the hell of it. If you are paying a tutor to help a succeeding child, you might as well light your stove with £50 notes!

And, speaking of 9s, there is a big distinction between 9s at GCSE and 9s at IGCSE (which private schools mainly do). IGCSEs were chosen for all the right reasons but, over the years, they have become far easier, and give high grades far more frequently than GCSEs. So private school pupils have many advantages: smaller sets, better behaviour (generally), lots of marking and clinics….and easier exams at the end.

I honestly can't get my head around private school and needing tutoring!? So many wasted hours when they could be focused on more worthwhile activities and growing into more rounded people.

I find the narrative so odd. My 15 year old daughter has never been to school, has got a brilliant group of friends, spends time doing her variety of hobbies and developing skills she enjoys. Has never had tutors, followed any curriculum or done any formal education at all. We've just always had great books, music, plenty of time outdoors, play, sport, lots of time in our local community etc. She's just got 4 grade 9s by self-studying for 11 months, and due to do the rest in April/May. It's been the opposite of hot-housing. Yet she is more switched on, and enjoys learning far more than any of her schooled cousins or friends. She is not a child genius or anything like it. I'm not being boastful, I'm just sharing this as I believe the constant narrative that kids need all this pushing and tutoring to 'succeed' is harmful. It creates fear in parents and everyone is scrambling to make sure their kid is at the top of the ladder. I hardly think it makes for better or happier kids.

As far as I was concerned my DD did get all 9s in the GCSE options she took, but she got a 7 for further maths which was an “extra” school made her do by virtue of being in top set. So she wouldnt have been counted in the stats above on that basis. It’s a bit of a misleading stat due to those anomalies.

If she had done one less exam she would have been in those numbers.

Surely if you need both private school AND a private tutor in order to get grades that some children in failing state schools are getting with no tutor, there are bigger issues.

DD was at a comp for GCSEs. Never tutored. Got a total of 11 Grade 9 and 2 grade 7 GCSES including 2 taken in yr 10.

Again the majority don't need tutoring for an 11+ as we don't have any form of selective education across most of the country

Tutoring is probably used more where parents have spare money and think dc could do better. They don’t sit back and of course it’s not something poor people do. However it’s not a given poor kids need the tutoring anyway. I knew people who tutored for 11 plus but often dc didn’t pass anyway. Just a slog for nothing. Some dc were pushed and pushed snd pushed and it wasn’t kind.

@Dearover this was the situation at my children's school. It wasn't on the radar because people couldn't afford it. The MN myth that those who go state pay in other ways is just that = a myth.

Of course the vast majority can't afford a tutor. In the same way as they don't automatically have their grade 4 GCSE put in for a check to get it pushed up to a grade 5.

Depends on the child .
Dd1 and Dd2 got high grades in their GCSE’s and A levels
Dd1 had tutors for GCSE maths/ science and A level Science subjects
DD2 did not have any tutoring for any subject

I know 3-4 who weren't tutored

Dd was at a non academically selective private school and achieved all Grade 8 with a couple of 9 in GCSE with no tutoring.

I had an English tutor for ds. He has SEN and struggled with English specifically. The aim was to get him through a Grade 4 so he could go onto a vocational college course.