AIBU to think Bs at GCSE are ok?

[catwalker]

Some issues with DS and GCSEs/6th form. He didn't get the grades he was predicted (As and As) but then I didn't expect him to as he doesn't put much effort into anything apart from his x box. He got mainly Bs, a couple of As, a couple of Cs and a couple of Ds. I was quite happy until I started reading the secondary education forum where people are tearing their hair out because their dc's didn't get straight As and may have blown their oxbridge chances. I get the impression that anything less than an A just isn't worth the paper it's written on. He could have done loads better but Bs are OK aren't they?

OP, if your son does not intend on going to university (and he'll be in the majority), then Bs are a good grade.
MN, as one of the more intelligent talk sites, often has a skewed view on these things.

I teach in a 'bog-standard comp'. Massive celebrations for the many who worked their proverbial socks off to get over the C/D borderline, parents couldn't be prouder.

Mitmoo, I know I was being facetious. Warwick does has a good reputation but it is not Oxbridge, it has some highly recognised departments, I know that. It is just a University I would never have wanted to study at.

I just found it soulless, it is akin to Bath and Lancaster in that it is set apart from the rest of the town/city and a bit modern for my tastes (yes, I am that shallow!). You have a town with wonderful architecture and you imagine it will be like that and it's nothing like. I grew up close by and we'd often visit Warwick Art centre for A-level eng lit plays/French films etc.

As I said above half of children in the UK do not achieve A- C at GCSEs so anyone getting Bs is not doing too badly. Our local comp gets 34% at A- C. Average UK IQ is 100.

However for some careers A and A* GCSEs do matter and some univesrity courses. I still look at GCSE results when I get CVs as well as A levels and degree grades. The jobs my 3 older graduate children have applied for all want all those results, marks in every module and dates at univesrity in each year and will look at what was taken when. I look at subjects too. You look for 8 or 9 core subject GCSEs, some sciences, maths, English, English lang, a language or two, geography and/or history. I don't need anything else but if they have one or two othres like RE, msuic, art that's fine.

If the 8 or 10 GCSEs are all studies stuff like travel and tourism which seems to be the most popular GCSE at our local comp that does not look too good. However depends entirely on the career concerned. I would say though avoid do any early. Do 8 - 9 only at one go. Allow lots of time also for your hobbies. It is much better to do 8 GCSEs very well in those core subjects and also keep up your Duke of E, your sporting and musical stuff or other hobbies and have time to think and relax than cram in a vast number iof GCSEs.

At my daughter's old school this year 96% of the children (girls) got A* or A in their GCSEs. However it is selective. The selective grammars are nearly as good too. Th eintersting issue is whether the very bright child will be helped enough to get to that standard if the bog standard school is just trying to get below and at aveage children through some basic GCSEs which I doubt but then I am a great fan of selection from age 4.

I am having a strange feeling of Deja vu. Wasn't there a similar thread a couple of months ago where Fabby Chic insisted that Oxbridge was a separate entity and that she knew someone who had gone there with mediocre grades?

Fabby, you don't appear to be listening but let's give it one more go! There is NO SUCH PLACE as Oxbridge University. Seriously. Look it up. Google it. You won't find it. It doesn't exist.

I am sure of this. I went to Oxford for my post grad. My DP was an undergraduate at Cambridge. I then went on to do my law conversion at Oxford Brookes. I think if someone had mysteriously built an Oxbridge University one of us would have noticed!

The only way in which Oxbridge exists is as a shorthand term for Oxford and Cambridge universities who are completely separate entities but linked in most people's minds by the fact that they have long standing sporting competitions and were, at one time, the undisputed top academic establishments, and because they are the original universities.

HTH

MN can be weird about these things. To some, any less then a 2:1 at a Russell Group is a life doomed to failure, despite widespread evidence to the contrary

Very weird. Only on here could you be a failure if you don't get all A* and at least a 2:1 degree. However, sadly, the country is going the same way.

I just love your posts Xenia! Has it not occurred to you that some of the brightest DCs don't have parents who can afford school fees and don't have any selective state schools in their area? They go to comprehensives and they get excellent teachers who are aiming high (and getting the results) and are not going in for soft options. My DS did chemistry in a Russell Group University-all his friends did well, Maths at Warwick, English at Bristol,Engineering at Imperial College etc etc

Have you missed the fact that selective state schools do better than many selective private schools? It seems very weird that the brightest DCs have parents with money-also unlikely.

I am sure that Fabby Chic enjoys winding people up.

Op - depends on what you mean by OK. I know of one highly selective school where possibly their richest alumni didn't achieve high grades. He has millions at a relatively young age and the attitude of his schoolmates to what they saw as "failure" probably helped give him the drive to make those millions (he's said that in interviews). No idea how happy he is now with his personal life.

There is no doubt that getting a lot of B grades restricts your choice of university and may rule out certain careers. It's not the end of the world. Careers that come with lots of prestige can also come with lots of stress and a dysfunctional family life. Look at the way some highly competitive people post on here - do you want your son to be like them?

Personally I was concerned when my children didn't work hard enough, even if they got good grades, but some do mature later than others and you may well find he simply needs a little more time to find what interests him, other than Xbox .

As with many threads on MN, the responses here reveal more about competitive parenting than about grades.

I think it depends on the context and the "story"

Bs are fine. They are only not so fine if they don't reflect the true ability of the candidate, in that he might not get offers of places at certain Universities (or on certain courses at lesser Universities) based on his O level grades.

It also depends on what grades he is predicted for A level, so if he can make a strong case with his tutors at 6th form that he has learned his lesson then they might up his predictions.

If he wants to study a course or at a University that might not want him on the basis of his GCSEs then he has the option of taking a year out and reapplying with the benefit of his A level results in hand.

This type of thing can be a benefit in the future - I got 8 As and B at O level but didn't do as well in my A levels. It was a massive kick up the butt and after a year out I went to Uni where I got a First. It makes a good story in interviews as to how I learned to be less complacent and that certain things are worth working for ;-)

I think most uni admissions look at the GCSE results in the context of the school attended. It is easier to get an A in a class of 16 than 32. A past pupil of mine starts at Cambridge this year and she got a mixture of A/A/B's at the inner city comp I work at. Any university should be proud to have her regardless of 3 B's!

A bit of failure early on can be a very good thing-it gives a wake up call.
It depends on how much he wants to do well. Does he want to go to university?
I never think that it is worth the parent doing all the pushing because once he gets there he is on his own. The parents will get no feedback or information on how he is doing-even if they ask-and a good thing too.

I wouldn't normally get involved in the debating threads, but some of these posts are absolutely heartbreaking to read.
OP's son is a teenager - still a child. Exams are an extremely stressful time for a teenager, particularly if you aren't one of the 'celebrated students'. When doing my GCSEs I was very aware of the pressure on me to perform well having been told that only A* grades meant anything. I worked all day and late into the night every day for months. The day before everyone of my exams I had panic attacks and didn't sleep. Most of my friends were the same way except for those who were constantly being told by the school that they were Oxbridge destined. Some of my friends actually gave up under the pressure and took a 'what's the point?' attitude - it was already being conditioned into them that less than an A wasn't good enough.
When I got my exam results - An A, 2 Bs, and the rest Cs, I didn't care that I didn't have all As - I was so proud of myself for getting those grades. Like OP's son I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Those grades were enough to get me onto A Levels and into uni though.
If I had thought at any point after getting my results that my mum or dad was questioning my 'B' - which to me was a huge success - then I would have been utterly heartbroken and probably never forgiven them for it.
If your sons and daughters want to be lawyers or doctors and go to Oxbridge then that is great, but most teenagers don't want that for themselves. Please don't make your children feel bad about that.

Depends. If you child is academic I would be dissapointed. if your child is hoping to enter a trade or do something less cerebral then it doesn't really matter.

Actually I disagree that children don't aspire to be lawyers or go to Oxbridge. Most of my friends at school wanted to be lawyers / doctors / optometrists and all succeeded. I had one friend who wanted to be a designer and is now a stay at home Mum.

Gosh, what is your phD in? I'm hoping to take time out and get a research degree. It is fiercely competetive in my area and I got 9A*s,1A at GCSE, 2As 1B at GCSE and MBChB.

I hate to see children written off so young. B's are fine to get into college or 6th form to do A level.

See I would have said B's were excellent grades.

I got 10 B's and 1 C (15 yrs ago) and it was considered very good, certainly people got A's but very rarely across the board and usually in the subjects they excelled at.

I then did BTEC and got accepted into uni to do degree with teacher training.

IIRC GCSE results are less weighted than A levels to get into Uni. I would have thought a student who got C's and B' at GCSE and A at level was maybe a better bet than one who got A's at GCSE then B/C at A level?

Best of luck for your DS in whatever he decides to do.

Yes Bs are very good in my opinion. GCSE's are only relevant if you need C or above in English/Science/Maths to study nursing and that sort of thing. Although even in that situation there are other ways around it still.

A Levels will help him get into Uni if he wants to but it still depends on the course.

I studied art and the grades I got were very irrelevant. All they were interested in was my portfolio of work. I was completely and utterly judged on that and nothing else.

Oh gosh, I find myself gripped by the education threads. I've never met mums like that in real life and would love to know what their children are really like. Are they just having fantasies? Do their kids really want to go to Oxbridge at the age of 11?

It gives me a really interesting insight into the rest of the world (away from my deprived, inner-city comp.) and, to be honest, I'm not sure I like it. Most of the mothers have far too little to worry about!

Of course your child's exam results are fine. Bs are great and most children in this country do not get grades that high. Yeah, they might struggle to get into Oxbridge, but then most people don't go there either (though you wouldn't know that from mumsnet).

Just a thought about fabbychic. Do you mean Uxbridge?

I think that there are far more parents who want their DCs to go to Oxbridge than DCs who want to go. Some of them must have so much pressure and so many expectations riding on them. (I'm sure Fabby Chic is just enjoying winding people up)

I think B grades are perfectly OK - but it's been quite a long time since I did my GCSEs, so I accept my thinking may be out of date. In those days as long as you got A to C grades, it was considered fine, and university entrance depended mostly on your A-level grades, I don't think GCSEs were much taken into account at all.

But things change. Much like the way a 3rd class degree (or indeed a 'pass') used to be a perfectly respectable result, now it's considered essentially a fail, and many people feel it isn't worth bothering going to university at all unless you get a 1st or 2:1. So maybe a B is a bad result these days . Things have changed so much that I'm not sure I understand what it even means.

Tortu I've met one and her DC's are only 5 and 8.

Actually met her at swimming club where she constantly demanded which group her DC's should be in because they were far too advanced to be with children they're age and slating the way they were taught. Once when they did promotions she actually told her DS that her DD hadn't been moved up and it was outrageous as she was far better than some that had - in front of the other parents. Actually just before holidays I suggested she found somewhere else if she wasn't happy with the teaching - apparently she has!! Whilst at Leisure centre when the other DC's were running around waiting for siblings (they dedicate a squash court as so many!) hers would be reading and once her DS was playing on his DS - BUT he wasn't playing and she told another boy who asked to play to 'go away, DS is practicing his spellings - you have to work hard to be the best'. The 4yo who'd asked to play just looked

She would go on and on about how the private school her DC's went to was better than the other one because there was 6 in a year - so far superior education and less distraction from peers. (there's a lot of private school kids in the club!) DS stands out like a sore thumb coming from OK local state and a LP family!

I fear these children are destined to feel like failures.