A pass is a pass? GCSE

[Rumplestiltz]

At GCSE, a 4 is a pass. When employers/apprenticeships/further and higher education institutes ask for a pass in maths and English, it’s a 4.

So why the fuss about “strong” passes, which is a 5? Why does the Government organise its data on the proportion who get “strong” passes in English and Maths? Bridget Phillipson saying it’s a travesty that white, working class boys aren’t getting “strong” passes in English and Maths and their life chances are affected as a result. It kind of undermines those who work very hard to get to that pass line of a 4 (teachers and students) to be told it’s not good enough.

I am sure I will be told it’s very easy to get a 4 etc etc, but for some kids in these subjects, it isn’t.

So my AIBU is - a pass is a pass.

Yes my son was similar. He had a year of extra tuition in English and maths and managed to get 4 in maths and 5 in English. He had great attendance, great behaviour. But academics were always a bit more effort to him than to some others in his school.

I’ll admit, I was a high flyer at school and it was a bit humbling to have children who were not similarly inclined. And until they got to secondary I assumed it was fairly easy to get to the C/4. But it’s not. It’s still quite difficult and a lot of work for some children and for them their 4s are to be celebrated just as much as other children’s 9s.

You don’t seem to know what an average is. Approximately half of any group will score below average, whatever the test is and however expert they are. And, again, if everyone put in 100% effort and got the majority of t(e paper right, 30% would still get below a 4. It’s a norm referenced exam.
4 is equivalent to a C.

That's not fair either when my son did his GCSE,s two years ago he got low grades he was never academic but had a medical emergency in the February of year 11 and very nearly died he was in intensive care for three weeks and was off school for an entire half term as you csn imagine this had a massive impact on his exams
He's no waster.

I think you’re misinterpreting my post. I didn’t say that everyone who didn’t get a 4 is a “waster”. I know that there are lots of reasons why people get below a 4.

I just meant that the majority of kids of messed around at my son’s school did not achieve a 4. The previous unpleasant poster implied that only kids who messed around got 4s and that is incorrect in my experience.

Nearly a third of students will not get a 4 and most of them can function ok in real life (although obviously their options are much more limited in what they can move onto). My brother failed both Maths and English and has run a successful business for years - his mental arithmetic is way better than mine and I work with statistics in an academic environment. One of the most able mathematicians I know had to retake English three times to get a C. Poor teaching, learning differences leading to spiky profiles, lack of maturity and personal health and circumstances will all influence outcomes and no amount of superior parenting can overcome all these.

Based on their subsequent downright nasty comments I'd say that comment was warranted.

A 4 is supposed to be a C so it should count

I believe PPs ignorance is based in the fact that a) her children are younger so she has no understanding of what current day GCSEs are like and b) she's under the impression that buying her children's education means she is guaranteeing their results.

Let's hope the government don't bring in a GCSE in not being an arse before those children reach year 11, because with their genetic inheritance they'd be lucky to scrape a 1.

It’s not ‘supposed to be’ anything. When the change happened a 4 was set so the same number as would have achieved C and above would receive 4 and above. So it’s equivalent in the sense that it hits the same point on the bell curve as a C used to. And yes, it counts. It’s a level 2 pass.

DD will have to resit her English exams, she got a 2 in Language (Merit in speaking) and a U in Literature.. yes she has AuDHD, and her attention span is shockingly bad, which impacted ALL her exams bar Maths & Art, but she also misses some fundamental understanding of assessing/analysing texts and the theory of building a good essay, and i'm not the one to blame for that... that one is on the school and the shocking way they've ignored the clear gaps in her understanding.. her Literature teacher was horrible when i met him at Parents evening just before exams, so bad was his attitude about her SEN that i complained to the school about him. 'she just needs to do the work' is not how you work around SEN with essay writing.

I'm hoping her college tutors manage to find a way to explain it to her.

I'm sorry Nameychangington, I didn't mean to offend you.
Well done to your DD.

Good luck to your DD with her resit and I hope she gets the help she genuinely deserves and needs.

Thank you! She's a bright young lady, with a very enquiring mind, it just isn't an academic one.

Like a previous poster its been a hard time adjusting to that as i thrived on the subjects she struggles with.. i was a whizz at essay writing, had a powerful understanding of text analysis and often got commended for the work i did at gcse/a level in Literature (before i crash out of my a levels, thanks adhd burnout.) but even with my help she just doesn't 'get' it.. or see the need for it.

I firmly believe there needs to be alternative styles of testing for students like DD who struggle wih 100% essay examination.

DS couldn't do his T-level with a 4 ((he's not massively acedemic) and had to redo to get on the course

I’ve also been shocked at the poor quality of English teaching at my son’s school. He did get a 4 in English Language in the end, which we are mightily relieved by. But this is a child who should have got a 5 in English according to his CAT scores and managed a 6 in another essay subject (history). It honestly felt like he was dumped in a lowly set with disruptive children, never ever given any feedback on his work and with a teacher who totally wrote him off. In his set, they just had to hold their work in the air to prove they’d done homework. The teacher never marked the homework. There was little guidance given on how to approach the language exam. I nearly cried at parents evening when she said he didn’t try hard enough. He did 2 hours per night (across all subjects) for the last 6 months of year 11.

Fingers crossed that your DD gets a better teacher this year and is able to achieve the magic 4. For some children it really is a huge achievement,

Warranted or not, posters still have to abide by MN talk guidelines.

that one is on the school and the shocking way they've ignored the clear gaps in her understanding..

That's been an issue though out DC education TBH. Primary school would flip flop on whether there were underlying issues - there were - and shurg often saying they weren't bad enough for help and what help there was wasn't always useful for them.

We plugged gaps in primary because of the kids undiagnosed SN/ND and then secondary went downhill and losing so many staff so ended up plugging huge gaps there.

We're lucky our kids with external support could do well - and we could offer home support. Though on here doing that often attrats negativity - you're over involved borderline abusive for making them do extra work at home even when you still manage to do all the fun things as well.

DN with a busy overworked single parent and other parent being undermining and anti school ass and so she never caught up after iniatlly doing well but a year with a poor teacher then medcial issues taking her out of school she fell behind. She ended up in bottom sets in secondary -though in a better secondary than my kids - and it was touch and go if she'd get needed 4s - she did meaning she could do a level 3 straight away but class disruption and frankly more poor teaching nearly scuppered her - she got a 9 in art and rest where above 5.

I just don't see how these days kids that fall behind ever catch up in many state schools without some external support - whereas I did and could.

Similar issue we had. My older DS has everything diagnosed, ehcp, ALLLL the help going. My DD was also very clearly AuDHD, but because of Covid smack in the period when i was trying to get her in the system, she's never managed to be assessed. When i got my diagnosis 4 years ago I went in and i told them what i could foresee happening, and it was going to happen sooner than mine did.. she was going to crash/burn out before her exams if they didn't get her some help.

They did put help in place and agreed she was obviously AuDHD, same as me and her brother, but it was too little, too late, and her ADHD especially absolutely became the bear on her back through yr10/11... alongside the constant low grade bullying she was experiencing for being different.

She was SO pleased to see nearly everyone doing her college course is also 'the odd one out', and is looking forward to being able to be herself a bit more.

It's interesting the whole academic vs not academic thing.
There's currently a thread about what novels people studied at school.
I can (over 30 years later) remember specific books. I can discuss the characters, the plot etc.
But could I write essays and do an exam on them?
No I couldn't. I just couldn't do it (I got reasonably ok GCSE grade and failed the A-level).
Under the current system I think I would have done a lot worse at GCSE as it all exam (we did coursework) and you have to memorise so much.

Yes your attitude.

Hypothetical, but these bell curves are surely sometimes skewed, no?? If 100% of pupils got over 80% in an exam, those who were unfortunate enough to get 80%, would fail??

Also so much is down to timing, and many students, particularly those with specific learning differences, haven't yet learnt study and coping strategies or don't understand their own best way of working (and often get very little support on this). As part of my role I train and support PhD students - a surprising number had left school with very poor grades and had only returned to education later, when it became clear they were very able and they found their niche. One of to most original and talented students I ever taught came into this category.

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest whenni did my nurse training in 90 s it was when they has first introduced the diploma
The students that got the highest grades often were mature students who had been out of education for a long time many of them didn't have any official qualifications and were accepted as they had payed the DC test which was an IQ test ( I beleive )
Maturity has a lot to do with it in some cases.

Totally. I basically managed to wing it through gcse,a level and degree. Exams were easy. I didn't have to try and remember stuff, it was just there. I used to waffle in essays. Got told to pack it in, so I did. Formulating an argument etc. Piece of piss.

First year in my actual job? Chaos. Couldn't just write an essay and be done.

People who know me as an established professional remark how organised I am. They don't knew that that came at huge emotional and often personal cost. Had o needed to be organised earlier, I'd have sunk.

Exactly. When GCSEs came in they were criterion referenced, but people got upset about the high and/or fluctuating results from year to year.