GCSE Math exam today

[HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend]

How did your child get on today?

DC sat paper 1 today (edexcel), came home and said he failed, he only answered 11 of the 17 questions and even then he was only confident he answered 3/4 of them accurately.

He said 4 of his classmates were crying, 1 had a full panic attack where he had to be removed and some just sat with their hands in their heads.

I can't find a GCSE support thread this year, hence me starting this post.

DD1 said she attempted 39 marks worth of questions (higher paper, but could have been entered into the foundation).

And they had a fire alarm during it.... (Malicious, rather than real.)

She had the tracing paper, but she was in a separate area due to extra time. Those in the main hall got given it later.

She's very much on the cusp of a pass (and didn't sit foundation because of the grading boundaries). There were lots of tears last night and stress this morning. DD barely eats anyway, but the exams have sent her on a bit of a spiral with that.

History tomorrow, but that's one of DDs strengths so hopefully will be ok.

My daughter said she found it quite hard.

One of her friends, who has studied particularly hard, came out in tears.

DD didn’t answer some qns but was happy enough for her (maths was never going to be her best) there were other kids in tears, including some of the more confident ones.

DD thought it was ok (top set, predicted a 7 but 5 in mock) but said a lot of her her year were in tears at the end

AQA biology a couple of years ago had a grade 9 at 66 percent. A grade 9. The top couple of percent of kids and yet they can't access 1/3 of the paper. What is the point of exams that hard?
Grade 6 boundary was 86/200, 43 percent.

It's an actual outrage. I don't understand why teachers and parents aren't demonstrating.

It’s worth remembering that this is the year group that were in lockdown in Y6 and in bubbles in Y7. My personal belief is that they aren’t (painting with a broad brush here) as resilient and confident as previous year groups, because of that.
Hopefully the grade boundaries will reflect that if needed.

Answer here pretty easy, DS seems to think he has 1 point off 1 question but confident with the rest. He loves math and had 9 on mocks though, no tears across the year

and Y8, ds came out of his bubble just before starting Y9, couldn't agree more also.

My daughter did the Higher paper and found it hard. She has only been moved up to Set 1 in March and wishes she had stated in lower and done the Foundation paper. She works herself up and suffers from self doubt around exam time. Roll on the end. Good luck to those children that are sitting any exams x

They need a couple of questions set at grade 9 and a couple at grade 8, yes. They don't need 75 percent of the paper or more aimed at differentiating the top few percent. Or have a 7/8/9 extension paper or something.

And I say this as the parent of a brilliant mathematician who got 98 percent in his maths GCSE. He is exceptional. The papers should not be set for those few exceptional kids only. They should be set at a level that ordinary kids don't come out feeling like they are incompetent idiots who cannot access the majority of the paper. There's no wonder we have a mental health crisis in our teens.

My DC was very happy.

Absolutely. The huge percentage of boys in England and Wales for example that do not gain the ‘low pass’ in English is a shocking testament to how ridiculous Gove’s curriculum is. And it is supposedly the measure of whether a student can operate basic workplace reading and writing. Yet instead they have to read nineteenth-century texts and answer questions ‘in the way the exam board need them to be answered’. Frankly, if many professional adults sat them, they might well not understand the specific format that the weird formula of the question really wants. And don’t get me started on the quality of examiners the boards are able to recruit… The number of exams students are sitting nowadays compared to even just ten years ago, is a dreadful way to treat young people especially those who find schoolwork difficult. It’s no wonder many are unravelling.

By the way from my initial analysis of social media commentary on papers this year, what they appear to be doing more of is asking a question that requires the candidates to not just recall and explain the knowledge but to apply knowledge into a slightly new idea that they haven't been taught. For example geog A level they had to discuss how important global policies are for climate change - something not directly covered in the curriculum, though they covered climate change and government policies. And in biology GCSE they had to apply knowledge of monoclonal antibodies into blood clots - again, they talked about antibodies and blood clots but not specifically the two together. So they are examining who really understands and can apply the principles of the acquired knowledge, and who has just learned it inflexibly.

Why 15 and 16 year olds need to know about monoclonal antibodies at all is another matter of course!

I have warned my DC currently taking A levels to be prepared to think around questions that are related to taught knowledge but which require her to "zoom out" and examine the application of that acquired knowledge - and to not panic!

The response seems to have varied. My DC were thrilled and said it was easier than any mocks or past papers they'd done. They're both in the 7-9 category and they were excited there were fewer questions with higher marks. Apparently they were not harder than previous 3 markers but worth 5. DD said she finished half an hour early which is slightly worrying. Sometimes you can feel it went well but make loads of silly mistakes. She said she checked everything and didn't find any mistakes but she already found one in chatting to her brother, it was a bit of a trick qu but only 1 mark.

Absolutely. My DC are now Y12 and eldest completed a levels last year. I have seen the huge impact on both of them, it's not discussed enough. DC1 was the first year group to sit GCSEs after COVID and it was an absolute shit show. Nothing against the school, they did everything they could under extreme conditions but how do you set national exams and a level playing field for results when everyone has had a different online learning experience.

My DC actually did surprisingly well, being AuDHD and learning from home really worked for them, but a lot of their peers really struggled and didn't get the grades they deserved

While I do agree that some amends are needed (especially to Eng lit IMHO), it's worth remembering that while the mark for a 4 for the H paper is very low, %-wise, anyone likely to achieve that mark should not actually be sitting the H paper. That's what the F paper is for. I do wonder how many students sitting H get a grade 4 with the 17% pass mark. Unless they have a mare in some way.

@ShiftySquirrel can I ask what you mean by this: She's very much on the cusp of a pass (and didn't sit foundation because of the grading boundaries)? What I mean is, why did grade boundaries stop your DD sitting foundation?

As I say above, if a student is on the cusp of a pass I would expect them to sit F (if available). In my subject (MFL) the F paper is much more accessible and a student looking for a 4 or a 5 will be able to tackle most of it well.

DS said he felt he did ok, but a few of the questions were hard. When he chatted to friends at the end of the exam about the particularly hard ones, they had all come up with very different answers.

I was going to say something similar. It’s sometimes the ones in tears who grasped the difficulty of the few marks they missed. It’s often the swaggerers who had the nuances go over their heads while the perfectionists catastrophise. I wouldn’t worry too much oP; it’s not as though it can change now anyway and you can’t always tell from student responses.

Totally agree with the comments above by @DrRuthGalloway . The system is bizarre and unhealthy.

What an unhelpful reply

Michael, is that you?

your points are valid. This is not the thread to be making them on though.

Start your own thread, Dr. Ruth Galloway.

Unhelpful how, and unhelpful to who? I think it's an important topic raised.

This sounds like a nightmare and I can only hope things change for my children as this is a few years off yet. Getting such low marks shouldn’t be such high grades. Clearly something isn’t right.

Similar here. Dd said today's higher Edexcel was the hardest maths paper she'd ever done and she's done every past paper.

She finished the paper and answered all the questions. All her friends thought it was tough as well. They're all in the top maths set so pretty good at maths as well.

Wtf? Who made you the thread police? If you look at engagement there are a lot of people who appreciated and agreed with what I said, and only you disagreeing.

I don't have the faintest clue of how my response is unhelpful or inappropriate. Someone said their kid found the maths paper really hard and some children were upset. I agreed that grade boundaries are ridiculous, exams set too hard and it's damaging our teens. How is that on the wrong thread?

What kind of a reply would you have deemed appropriate for the thread?