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

[ssd]

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.

Ok can someone answer a question for me. What is this utter obsession amongst parents on here about grade boundaries and marking schemes? I'm not being snarky, but I don't understand.

Your child sits exams, they get their grades, you congratulate or commiserate, and they move on to the next phase. What more is there to it than that? Why all the analysis?

My DD got a 6 in both English exams and the exam board itself converts that to the equivalent of 'A/B'. That seems ridiculous to me!!

TheNaze I agree the system needed an overhaul, but not necessarily this one.

There were as I see it 2 main issues with the old system:

1. Controlled Assessments
2. The very high % of A/A* grades.

The CA system was open to much abuse. For example the MFLs where you could prep in advance (with e.g. an outside tutor to write/correct it all) learn by heart and regurgitate. Some schools gave more help than others. Some schools allowed time for more than one attempt, others didn't.

2. The high A/A* rate. This sounds like an issue, but actually isn't so much. To distinguish between the best candidates, you really only needed to then look at A level results which is where the academic head next. But an A^ or an A1 grade could have been introduced using the same system as the 9s. Also the Further Maths qualification was available to stretch the more able mathematicians.

What has gone wrong in my opinion is the grammar-school-isation of the curriculum for Maths and English. So instead of keeping it GCSE - for all, they have O-levelled them making a high % of the curriculum unachievable for average kids. (Much harder maths, unachievable, old fashioned English texts rather than more modern language that is used in everyday life).

Think of it this way, most employers want numerate, literate employees, who can do all the basic everyday maths (%, ratios etc), who can write literate letters, comprehend texts etc. But that isn't what a grade 4 now really represents. So a bar is being put for progression that isn't in the right place. (To be fair for Engl Lang I'm not sure it was in the right place before either).

Oops typo above - the second "History" should have been French,.

Wombling, I have never tried to understand the grade boundaries. One of my 18 year olds started to explain and then we decided there was no need for me to know. He is probably appealing one weird mark (in an A level) so I think for that reason you need to do a lot of complicated sums and also look at whether you might bring your grade down by a remark (risky) or if you are at the top of the level so worth a try on a remark if the mark you gained on one paper looks wrong.

Wombling because they tell the pupils the marks (UMS) so people can see how close they were. If they didn't say the marks (like in the old days), people wouldn't be able to fuss.

They could have introduced Z & Y as grades above A...
Just saying, there were other options.

Or going forward, they could have pegged A-G system to a bell curve, and pointedly said that A now meant top 3%, A meant top 10%, etc.

I think the grading system is pretty clear, what isn't clear, even to colleges, is whether a 4 or 5 is the required grade for college entry. It's really odd as our local schools all had better results than ever this year.

I think the obsession that some parents have with grade boundaries is that, deep down, their child's best is not good enough, so they blame the system instead.

I've been loving the spin from schools.
Some schools discussing the levels 7 to 9 they have got.
Others discussing the 9s they got.

And a pass / strong pass...It's ridiculous.

"Why Edith?Can't they read around and make a note which year the exam was taken. Isn't that their job? Surely they differentiate between Olevels,CSEs,good O level equivalent CSE passes,GCSEs and European qualifications already."

They can, but will anyone reading GCSE scores remember to look it up? Can you remember off hand what year GCSEs were taken? Or what year A* was introduced for GCSE or for A Level?

Now, I know about GCE/CSE equivalences but most of my younger colleagues (who never went through the system don't, but for qualifications that are nearly 30 years old there aren't the same level of checks. For European qualifications, everyone looks them up.

But a GCSE grade 4, having two meanings? It'll get overlooked.

Yes, you're right it shouldn't . But that doesn't mean it won't, and that is why I think it is an important part of the problems with this precipitate roll out. With the change that introduced GCSE in the first place, there was plenty of preparatory work before the announcement which signalled the 4 year countdown to roll-out, and things like what was a 'good' pass was set then and not changed.

I think the poster whomsays the bar is in the wrong place is likely to be right. Why only "likely" ? Because the preparations just weren't adequate. And if it does change, it is the cohort who sat under the brief period where grades had different meanings who will cop the consequences.

for a 9 in maths it was 79.2%

Wow - I would have thought it would be much higher than that

"think the grading system is pretty clear, what isn't clear, even to colleges, is whether a 4 or 5 is the required grade for college entry. It's really odd as our local schools all had better results than ever this year."

Crikey! If there are colleges this year who can't decide what counts as what, despite being in the sector, despite grades being core to admissions and despite all the info available this year; then there really isn't much hope for it making sense to employers a few years in the future.

I can't because I don't work in HR. If I did I'd make it my business to know.

needasockamnesty you need to read the jcq link above and contact your son's school as that is completely untrue. He would have lost some spag marks for using a scribe but most students gain more in their actual answers than they lose in spag and there is no loss of marks for extra time!

I can't because I don't work in HR. If I did I'd make it my business to know

But no one has decided - all people have been told is that a 4 is a pass and a 5 is a strong pass.

So someone with a 4 got a C - which would have been fire to get on a course / job before and someone with a 5 got a slightly better C.

If you were ok with a C before, should you be ok with a 4?

Thanks TeenTimesTwo I guess that makes sense, but I still don't really get it. Is it because everyone wants to say "well Jonny got a B but it was nearly an A"? If so then it's not going to make any difference in the real world. The grades you have are the grades you got. You write them down on application forms or your CV and that's it, surely. In three years time, no one is going to remember or care that Jonny was 3 marks off an A* are they?

I find it puzzling and baffling, and I say that as a parent of a 2016 GCSE student. Already, a year later, those actual grades don't matter in the slightest beyond 5 A*-Cs including maths and English.

It was the same when O'Levels/CSEs were replaced by GCSEs. I remember as my brother was in the first cohort to take them.

The world coped with the change then and it will cope again now.

We seem to have a pre-concieved notion from our school of what percentage represents a pass - between 45-50% maybe? But this is a myth!

This year an 7/A grade was just above 50%. Harder exams don't mean that getting an 7/A grade is harder - they have just lowered the grade boundaries - the whole thing is a political farce.

I think the exam papers and the marking schemes are bonkers. Amending the thresholds for grades each year so that more or less students achieve certain results is farcical. The interference by exam boards and the DofE with results is all about positive PR and it is a disservice to our young people. Surely the exams should be set in line with the curriculum and not so difficult people getting approximately half the questions on a paper correct get an A or 7 grade. An A should be 85%.

That's the other issue, Beyond - the pass mark is different for every exam board. When choosing which board to go with for the new spec the subject content was very similar. So, how can the grade boundaries be so different?

One reason is that the papers can vary in difficulty/questions/topics between in exam boards.

Another is that there will be a different number of candidates between exam boards. For example, in my subject, 55,000 odd candidates sat the OCR board, 5,000 sat the EdExcel, another 5,000 sat AQA and about 500 sat the WJEC/Edquas board. The grade boundaries will have a wider curve to choose from in the boards which have many candidates and so the grade boundaries will differ by a few marks. A meeting will have been had between exam boards to ensure some consistency but it will not be exact.

This is why, the one proposal I actually agreed with Gove on and that makes me vomit in my mouth having to admit that to have one exam board for every subject, would have made the most difference to improving standards.

*for a 9 in maths it was 79.2%

Wow - I would have thought it would be much higher than that*

I wouldn't, necessarily. My DD has just finished school and always preferred 'hard' maths exams because then getting the top grade relies on being able to do hard maths rather than being scuppered by a couple of daft mistakes.

There's nothing wrong with the new exams being 1-9, it makes it clear which are new ones and the mapping to old grades seems easily comprehensible. The old ones already had a double-starred A aka A^ on the further maths paper BTW.

Its the content which matters - it does seem as though maths has been pitched inappropriately. One size doesn't fit all, and for maths two don't either. If we can have separate english lit and lang, couldn't they come up with an 'everyday' maths exam (arithmetic, percentages, compound interest, basic geometry/trig -the stuff most people really need to use) and then a separate one for the rest?

Re the over hasty introduction of the new exams - yes- I did a biology '16+' exam, a pilot for gcses, in 1977, over 10 years before gcses came live.

yr10parent

No it isnt the same, mainly for this reason Because the preparations just weren't adequate

No past papers, no idea of the requirements and constantly changing grade boundries

Agree with lljkk

It shoukd have been made harder to get an A

Fucking ridiculous

And i agree with errol re a more useable maths exam

Something like business maths which i think they do in the USA

Basic book keeping, all the usual suspects