Tell me about good GCSEs without use of tutors

I do know three who didn't

And you know this for every student who got an A* in maths I suppose ?

I don't understand either, hence why we allowed our kids to attend a local school and never gave tutors a second thought - apart from (while living in London) trying to banish the noise made by other parents. Tutor-guarding and denial were phenomena.

And yes, quite frankly once you're up in the realms of 8s and 9s the difference may just be performance on the day; so no difference! I think top universities acknowledge this tbh. It's a shame some parents can't.

@RedSkyDelights Response from his parents? That’s very sad. Anyone would be proud of those results surely?! He’s obviously going to be fine. I don’t actually understand all this angst about grades. What difference does 2 x 8 grades make to anything?

That would be my nephew. He got 8 9s and 2 8s. You'd think he'd failed all his GCSEs based on the response he got. This narrative that "all 9s" is very easy to achieve, and not actually very rare is really harmful.

@RampantIvy You are right there! I feel sorry for dc where an 8 is a failure!

This makes interesting reading. Of the 667,340 students who sat GCSEs in England last year, only 1,270 achieved all 9s.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2024/infographics-for-gcse-results-2024-accessible

And their parents are all on mumsnet 😁

My oldest 2 did GCSEs - both 9 9s and a couple of 8s or 7s. I had no idea anyone was tutoring until Y12 when another parent asked me if I knew a further maths tutor. ‘But they’ve only been doing the A Level course for 3 weeks, why does she need a tutor?’ I said. At this point the parent explained about a quarter of the year group had been tutored all the way through GCSE at this grammar school.

which means 3/4 children were not. So I don’t think it’s the norm.

I think keeping an eye out, supporting them with revision and asking questions, checking they are aware of the syllabus, and checking that they are learning exam technique, should absolutely be sufficient. But I can understand you would be wary if there could be an environment of tutoring. Keep your expectations up, talk with the teachers as appropriate, and be more hands on at home if things start to seem off in any subjects.

My children both had all the support they needed at their schools to get straight 9s. The only tutoring they ever had was a bit of help with French for 13+ so that it didn't let them down at scholarship assessments. Both switched to German at the first opportunity (and one took it through to A level) - they got on with that language much better.

I grew up in a different country albeit with some of the same private vs state school issues. My sister's school unfortunately was one where a large majority were being heavily tutored. She had a poor maths teacher in her upper years who didn't seem to realise that most of her class were taught every topic ahead of class, and therefore got away without teaching anything (and tried to mark my non-tutored sister down). When it came to a head a few months before my sister's school leaving exams my mother sat her down and said right, your sister will be tutoring you now, like it or not (I was already tutoring while at uni, and still living at home, so was happy to do it). She topped her class in (the equivalent of further) maths where her teacher thought she should have been doing a lower level.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft Yes. That’s what I said earlier. The brightest tend to get the highest grades without tutoring as long as teaching is good and dc are prepared to knuckle down. I truly sympathize when dc are not well taught and need gaps closed. However prolonged tutoring is hardly a childhood.

@RampantIvy More content doesn’t equal more difficult. If they were, top grades would plummet.

You mean fewer top grades would be awarded? No, they can just set the grade boundaries to get the number of top grades they think appropriate.

So did you think all A stars was easy then?

Bright children will get good grades if they apply themselves. If they were that easy all children would get those grades, but not all children are that bright. Lots even fail to achieve a grade 4.

So let's not pretend that getting a raft of 9s is as easy as it had been for the DC of the posters on this thread.

My daughter was at a comp and got straight 9's no tutoring.

I would say the key to them was a very structured approach to revision. She did plenty but didn't work herself to the bone but what she did was very productive.

As a note the grades were a surprise - she was predicted a mix of 8/9 and one 7.

Ok, you win @TizerorFizz as you always like to be right.

Have overheard parents saying how DC did it all by themselves - oh no they didn't

Many parents will not admit to having private tutors - online tutoring easier to keep discrete. Have overheard a parent
From a tutors side - majority private school.

@RampantIvy More content doesn’t equal more difficult. If they were, top grades would plummet. They haven’t. They are just different. Are you saying dc who took the former GCSEs could not access A levels and in turn could not access elite university degrees? Not sure this is borne out at all. The former GCSEs served a purpose and many teachers disliked the Gove reforms. How quickly they forget.

I mean you can only go with what was in front of your DC @RampantIvy
Under the old system mine got all A stars at GCSE and A level. I think there was an element of competition between them tbh. But I have no way of knowing whether they'd have done so well under the new system. They obv hit the ceiling under the old one tho.

On every other thread about GCSEs teachers always post about how much more content heavy they are since 2016. I'd be inclined to believe a teacher TBH.

When DD was at school she took 10 GCSEs. Her old school now offer 9 as standard, so there must be something in it.

We got a tutor when dd1 mocks in one subject were way down as were others in the class. Something had gone wrong over lock down and the subject hadn’t clicked even with the bright ones. Mock exam grade was 4 she got an 8 in the gcse so money on the tutor was well spent. 8s and 9s in everything else. State school though not private.

They cannot be much more difficult as the 7/9 grades awarded are stellar. They are just different. Not all DCs got a hatful of A stars previously and possibly the grade boundaries are different and more lenient now.m? It’s not as if untutored dc fail at A level or uni. It’s important to have a balanced life.

I guess it's worth keeping an eye on whether your child is covering the whole syllabus. But a competent private school will presumably be doing that anyway.

"The maths tutor took the time to explain new concepts to DD and she jumped up from a B to an A* in a matter of weeks"

Ah, now, you've reminded me that DS was in the middle set for maths and therefore was never taught how to do "the A-star questions". So we taught him whatever it was, and he duly got an A*.

Apologies for the bold. I can't reformat this in an update.