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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think thank fuck we don't live in England with this stupid results system going on?

193 replies

ssd · 24/08/2017 22:11

by christ Michael Gove has really fucked up with this, it seems to be a change for the worst and is very confusing

why was this introduced, it doesn't seem to be clear to anyone, this is an awful system for the kids to get their heads around, this gov should be ashamed of themselves.

OP posts:
Cailleach666 · 25/08/2017 06:45

Where do you live OP?

Squeegle · 25/08/2017 06:46

What an utter waste of time . For a country that is seeing severe cuts in education, why on earth did we find the money to do this? Takes us back to the dark ages of learning by rote. Is there anything good about it?

tinypop4 · 25/08/2017 06:54

Change is always tough on the Guinea pig years as everyone gets used to the new way.
It'll be alright next year and subsequent years when everything is 1-9. I agree that the 4/5 pass mark thing is inexcusable and generally I'm not convinced that this chance was needed

BWatchWatcher · 25/08/2017 06:57

I was at a university that graded on a 9 point system. It was a massive pain.

sashh · 25/08/2017 06:57

StillDrivingMeBonkers

Don'r forget BTECs pass, merit, distinction, City and Guilds qualifications and various other certificates eg typing exams that gave you a words per min score.

mummmy2017 · 25/08/2017 07:12

9 is 90% and over
8 is 80% and over
7 is 70% and over

How did you know at a glance before how high your child had scored.
You can't get 110% in a test.

TheHandmaidsTale · 25/08/2017 07:26

@mummy2017 No it isn't done on percentages like that. 3% of those who sat the exam get a 9. To get one you have to be quite close to full marks which is over 90%.
The grade boundaries are on a curve so change each year based on how all the students performed in the exam.

BarbarianMum · 25/08/2017 07:27

Well it will certainly be incomprehensible to people and employers who can't count to 9.

I would think any employer who is interested in the difference between a B or C grade in old money will take 2 minutes to download the equivalency chart from the web.

Whatsername17 · 25/08/2017 07:29

Mummy, that isn't accurate. The percentage required to get a 4 in maths (Edexcel) was 20%. It is different in every subject. AQA Drama pass percentage was significantly higher than AQA English. It's not that straight forward.
The actual levels are easy to understand and id recommend watching the governments video. How we, as teachers, mark the work against those grades is far more difficult. We don't know what a grade 9 looks like. We don't know where the grade boundaries are and they will change every year. We do not yet know where on the scale a child with a ks2 grade of 6 will sit at GCSE. It will all come with time and experience.
The government have invented a new stick to beat teachers with. I am HOD of Drama. The new GCSE is weighted at 70% written and 30% practical. The grade boundaries for a 4 or above are significantly higher than for core subjects. It's the same for PE, ART and other creative subjects. But the government want these 'soft' subjects out. So the figures are manipulated.

Ceto · 25/08/2017 07:34

I'm ancient enough to have done O levels with a 1-9 grading system. However, 1 was the top, 1-6 were passes, 9 was the lowest.

I think it's a mistake to try to find equivalents with the old system. As time goes on we'll recognise perfectly well what a 5 means without having to convert it into a high C in our heads.

StarHeartDiamond · 25/08/2017 07:36

Not really helpful but if someone had got 11 A's at O level in (say) 1982, they would have practically been the next Einstein. It would have been extremely unusual even for a super bright kid.

Hard to believe something hasn't been dumbed down along the way somewhere.

Whatsername17 · 25/08/2017 07:42

Or teaching is better? I the 80's teachers didn't need a degree. There wasn't the same standard of training required as there is now or constant refreshing and retraining. Differentiation barely existed. Kids were labelled as "thick". Maybe it's a bit of both? I don't know. What I do know is that the exams are not easy.

SomewhatIdiosyncratic · 25/08/2017 07:42

There wasn't any money to implement the changes. No money for accompanying course textbooks etc. No extra money for photocopying. Just teachers doing their best to rewrite schemes of work, lesson plans and powerpoints on the information available (which at the point I left the classroom 13 months ago was pretty scant.) Some exam boards had only just had the specifications approved by the regulator 2-3 months before teaching to year 10 now going into 11 had to begin.

JulieJaffacake · 25/08/2017 07:44

With regards to the supposed low pass mark for maths, this was on the Higher paper - so everyone taking it is expected to pass, it simply differentiates between the good at maths and the very good at maths. The Foundation paper has a much higher pass mark - it would simply be impossible to have a paper that covered everything from functional maths to topics that used to be covered in A level...

Whatsername17 · 25/08/2017 07:49

Yes, but look how it compares:

to think thank fuck we don't live in England with this stupid results system going on?
Whatsername17 · 25/08/2017 07:55

So when the head or parents want to know why a child got an 8 in English but a B in drama - an 'easier' subject, this is why. It isn't uniform across subjects. A very bright kid will not get the same grades in each subject because the pass mark is different.

IroningMountain · 25/08/2017 07:56

My dc are going into years 9 and 8 and have never known anything different. ''Twas very easy to grasp for us parents too when we had it explained by the school.

I think it's an improvement.All our local schools seem to have recieved it well.

It was rushed in too quick though and the kids this year have born the brunt of transition like last year's Sats students. It is tricky to bring in change without any disruption though.

CookieDoughKid · 25/08/2017 08:00

As an employer ( large global multinational) we find the new grading system quite difficult to implement because of the mix with alphabetical grades. I think we will emphasise even more the A level and University qualifications and just concentrate on the minimum grade 5 for English and Maths now for new graduates and A level inteens

TeenTimesTwo · 25/08/2017 08:00

And in answer to Willow no, most people will not have studied everything on the higher maths paper, and this was the same under the old GCSE as well.

e.g. algebra.

A pupil might be able to understand solving 3 + y = 10
and even 3y + 1 = 10

But may not be able to solve 3y^2 -2 = 10

If they can't do that then there isn't much point trying to teach them how to solve 2y^2-3y=9 or teaching them simultaneous equations.

The main issue with the low pass mark is how absolutely depressing it is for students to be faced with an exam where they can only do a quarter of it. Even to get a 7 this time (old A grade) you needed only just over half marks. This produces even more kids who think they 'can't do maths' which to be honest is probably the opposite of the original intention of making the syllabus harder.

Perhaps they should have reintroduced the intermediate tier for the new maths syllabus.

CookieDoughKid · 25/08/2017 08:00

Interns

BeyondThePage · 25/08/2017 08:02

My 2 are in this year's and next year's cohorts - change happens, they may as well get used to it

(just to add mine are high academic achievers, so are not facing problems relating to a 4 or 5 being a pass - which is where most of the problems seem to lie for kids this year)

TeenTimesTwo · 25/08/2017 08:02

Cookie - Why the grade 5? Surely the Grade 4 which is a) pegged to a C, and b) the grade at which the government has said you don't need to do resits?

(Unless you used to require a B of course)

SpaghettiAndMeatballs · 25/08/2017 08:04

No it isn't done on percentages like that. 3% of those who sat the exam get a 9. To get one you have to be quite close to full marks which is over 90%.
The grade boundaries are on a curve so change each year based on how all the students performed in the exam.

I get the point of grading on a curve, but I also see that there's some issues there - from year to year, the same answers to the same paper could get different grades - which has to be wrong - you'd stand a risk of people starting to want to know the year you passed, so they could know if that was a good year, like wines!.

Not that I know the solution of course, but then, whilst I know I got 2 As, 5 Bs 3 Cs and a D at GCSE, I can't actually remember what they specifically were in (beyond that I must at least have English, Maths and Science in there!)

Headofthehive55 · 25/08/2017 08:05

I would prefer a system where actual marks are given.
Standardised of course.

Going round celebrating you are an A student when your friend got one mark less and is now a B student is bizzare.

It's a continuum not discrete measurement. Like height. If someone asks for my height I give the actual measurement, not I'm in the medium to small bracket.

Original poster
ssd · 25/08/2017 08:05

Ssd yanbu just as long as you aren't under the Curriculum for Excellence

I am! But our school didn't roll it out straight away.

OP posts: