To think the 2 tier GCSE system is wrong

[countingdaysuntilretirement]

My dd is in year 11 and will be doing her GCSEs in June. There has been some discussion on whether she would be sitting the higher levels or not - she's borderline on most. I have only just realised that you can't get lower than a grade 4 if you take the higher paper - if you do badly you don't get a grade 1,2 or 3 but are simply ungraded. But if she takes the foundation level she can't access the higher grades.

This means children are having to take a gamble with their papers. I would have thought the higher level would just add an additional paper or layer - not that you risked losing a GCSE altogether if you had a bad day.

Can anyone rationalise this for me?

@clary Yes, I do understand a lot better now. Though still not sure there might not be a better way.
Yes, doing GCSEs is scary full stop. But I hadn't realised what a split there was between higher and foundation so to hear that this late in the day and that she could have a bad day and end up with nothing in some subjects is particularly scary.

I clearly am being unreasonable for not already knowing that but I'm reasonably sure it wasn't a thing in 1988 when I did mine. DD also didn't know. She seems to have done the highers in the mocks and grades range from 7 to U.

to hear that this late in the day and that she could have a bad day and end up with nothing in some subjects is particularly scary.

@countingdaysuntilretirement but as lots of people have said, that won’t or shouldn’t happen. If she is going to achieve below a 3 (which is in fact the lowest level for the H paper, in MFL as well as I see) then she should certainly not be taking H. Higher tier papers are for candidates who stand a good chance of achieving a 6. If that's not her then she will be advised to take foundation.

Is she taking MFL? Is she taking triple science? If not then the H/F tiers only apply for three of her GCSEs anyway.

I don't like the system.

And teachers aren't always right, so students can be disadvantaged.

This isn't all subjects. English is just a one tier entry so everyone sits the same paper.

The problem that this can cause is the schools target is a 4, so if you have a child comfortably sitting on a 5 our school won't entertain any pushing for higher grades, they are underfunded so push all their efforts into the kids who will cause them to miss their target.
The middle of the road kids with potential are left to get on with it.

Surely if you had such a low score at ,GCSE Maths then you'd be unlikely to be doing A levels never mind a degree in subjects that require it.

This isn't true, it is in the school's benefit for the league tables for every child to get a high a grade as possible (or at least it was until this cohort who didn't sit SATs so there is no way to measure their progress).

School targets are meaningless, no one else measures against them.

Our school is only interested in the core subject pass rate of 4 & 5.

But I don't see why someone entered for the higher who does badly will end up with a U rather than a 1 or 2 if they get enough marks for the lower grades.

A grade 1 or 2 is about as useful as ungraded tbh, you'd be resitting either way (if you wanted to demonstrate a GCSE in that subject). Have you got a parents evening coming up? Can you speak to the teachers of the subjects you are concerned about?

Then their Progress 8 score must be terrible?

Schools describe a 5 as a "strong pass" and 4 as a "standard pass" in core subjects like Maths and English.

A "strong pass" sounds good to me!

Hmmm.. so my ds struggles with maths though he will hopefully get a 5, however he excels at business (on track for an 8 or 9). He will be taking business at A level and potentially a degree. However some Unis are asking for a 6 minimum at GCSE maths for business degrees.

Not necessarily. It’ll depend on their intake.

Yes this can be an issue and has been highlighted. He could do higher tier maths with the aim of gaining a 6 – he would need to be aware tho what the exam would look like for him (a good deal of the paper would be inaccessible). If he is on track for a 5 then he would be unlikely to fall off the bottom of the H tier. Or research courses which don’t require the 6 in maths?

My DD got a 6 in maths – she is able but was more interested in other subjects. I think it was fine tho – she knew she had not done lots of extra work and a lot of the maths paper would be a closed book and she was fine with that (very pragmatic). (I realise that's the opposite way round from your DS! but trying to say that it’s not a disaster to be looking at 5/6 on the H paper, as long as you realise what it will be like).

It’s a great shame they did away with the Intermediate tier in Maths.

Absolutely this.

If they only care about grades 4/5 in core subjects then they won't be ensuring that pupils take the right subjects to fill the correct buckets and so on, and results in those subjects count too.

If she has SN, have you spoken to SENCo about access arrangements? Is she getting all the support she needs to be able to have a fair crack at the exam? There are only a few weeks left for schools to be making those decisions, so worth having that conversation ASAP.

The problem when there was intermediate was that the Foundation paper only went up to a D and the (absolutely correct) criticism was that it was extremely dispiriting for students to be entered for a paper where they had no chance of getting the all-important C grade. What teachers wanted was for a nominal C grade to be added to the top of Foundation for students who scored extremely well. What actually happened was they binned Intermediate and made the old Foundation go up to a B equivalent (which used to be the top of Intermediate).

So effectively now weak students are having to sit the equivalent of the old Intermediate paper, and what they really did was get rid of the old Foundation paper.

It was a thing in 1990 when I did mine. I probably could have done the higher with a little support. I asked for help in one thing in maths and got put down a set. Foundation was too easy but less effort for the school.

Before GCSEs came in in 1988, O levels and CSEs did essentially the same thing, but you were split from the start of 4th (Y10). A CSE grade 1 was meant to be equivalent to an O level C. O level grades below D (A was the highest grade) were not considered to be a pass.

Its unfair.

A decent exam writer could create an exam that would test pupils of all abilities and give a fair and accurate grade at the end.

In a previous life as a teacher I was so grateful/relived that the subject I taught had one exam, no higher level or lower level - just the one.

no worries about pupils under or over achieving, no parents' evening pressures to enter a lower achieving pupil into the higher level exam.

There was coursework with my subject - marks were far much more under the pupil and teachers control. I aimed everyone at a project that had the potential to gain max marks.

At the start of my career I had to cope with CSE and O levels - this presented similar problems to those the OP is describing. If there was any doubt/worry I'd double enter pupils. I taught to the O level syllabus which covered all of that required for the CSE.

I am from the old O level generation and had just started teaching when GCSEs were brought in. The ideology behind the principle that everyone would be sitting the same exam and that every grade counted was wonderful and truly egalitarian. There was only one flaw and that was that it could never work. From the very beginning, grades A-C were seen as passes and every other grade as a failure by employers in the same way as the old system. There is also the small factor that people are completely different. There is a ditty l like which is as follows: The thin and the fat/The tall and the small/All curse the sign that says/One size fits all. This is as true in education as in all other areas of life. The GCSE system is fine for the vast majority of people, but fails those at each end of the ability scale. This is why different papers are necessary for different abilities of candidates. Even so, they do not stretch the most able candidates enough, either. This is why A* and grade 9 had to be brought in. O levels were harder than both CSEs and GCSEs and were meant to be rigorously academic from the outset. Only the top 15-20% of candidates took them, in the same way that only around 10% of people went to university in the eighties. CSEs were often more practical in their approach and they were tiered, too. I think one of the biggest disservices to young people is to pretend that everyone and everything is equal. They are not and cannot be. Academic success is not the be-all and end-all, either. After all, I may be able to play several musical instruments, but I rely on electricians and plumbers for their skills.

I think it's a ridiculous system.
All I hear is PPa saying it's always been like that, as if that's justification for a deeply flawed system.

Has anyone spoken to the children? I know two bright year 11s (different schools) who have been referring to themselves since year 10 as 'thick' because they are doing double rather than triple science. Their confidence is shot, and they're not going to try as hard as they could.

At least one of them is perfectly able to do triple science, but they were feeling unwell the day they did the one assessment in year 10 it was decided on.