GCSE Option that limit potential attainment

[FiddleOnTheRoof]

Hi
Really want to get my head around maths, English, and science gcse options. DC1 is approaching this and I know this will be discussed next term in school.

Maths
I am aware there are two levels foundation and higher (no intermediate) is it correct that the foundation will only get you a C/5 at best? Who decides which you can sit? Would be very unhappy if school chose DC1 had to sit this paper limiting his options to achieve a better grade.

English
Is this also split into different papers or do all children sit the same paper and all grades are available to all?

Science
I really have no understanding about double or triple science. Where has the individual subjects disappeared to (biology, chemistry and physics). What are the dis/advantages of double or triple science? Are there also papers/levels which limit ultimate end achievement here also?

Advice greatly appreciated from experienced parents. I could obviously wait until the school go through it all, but rather properly understand it all so that we can have longer to think about it all and make the right choices.

The impression I have from reading these boards is that with the new 9-1 specs fewer schools are trying to do accelerated double these days, as there is just so much content.
Our good comp has:
a) dropped accelerated triple
b) moved to start GCSE science syllabus at the start of y9. (They used to start summer term of y9 when DD1 did GCSEs under the old system).

sorry, accelerated triple

What you must know while thinking about this is the minimum expected grade (MEG) for your child in each subject.
MEGs are not based on teacher opinion but on your child’s CAT scores.

So for example if your child has a MEG of a 4 in Science they would be entered for foundation papers as entering for higher would likely result in a U.

Flashes What? imo that is rubbish.

If a child is performing at a 7 they'll be entered for Higher even if they had rubbish CAT scores in y7. Any school that used CAT scores (or KS2 SATs) like that would be doing their students a massive disservice.

@Flashesofrage that maybe true of your school, but not of every school. At DD's school they sat an exam in each science at Christmas of year 10 the outcome of which stimulated the correct discussion with the pupil and parents about double v. Triple.
Private schools are again not all pushing the 12-13 GCSEs. DD is at a small, but effective private school ( year 13 of 7 this year 3 going to Oxford). If you are top set maths ( so doing further maths), did triple science and top extra-curricular Greek you would be doing 12 GCSEs, but in the new year 11 cohort no one falls into that category around 15 pupils will do 11 GCSEs. The majority will do 9.
Universities are interested in the best 8 GCSEs taken at the same time. Quality is definitely more important than quantity.
Performing arts subjects have not yet been mentioned 60% of the marks here come from performance and 40% from exams. Expect very busy year 10 and early year 11, but less pressure in exams.

So much info to take in! So grateful for all the responses!

DC will be going into yr9 sept so I am early asking but am aware the school will most likely be positioning students for different tiers and really wanted to get my head around it all really before the conversation starts.

Our school does the Edexcel board and offers both double and triple science. No concern about taking double science however is this tiered as well? Wanted to also understand if it was all 3 sciences combined to give 2Gcse or whether the child picked 2 out of the 3 (eg physics and biology) leaving the third out.

Also, the idea that you have to achieve almost max make on a foundation paper, be it Maths or science to gain grade 5 seems a lot and just thought taking the higher paper gave a child the opportunity to score a 7, 6, 5 or 4... which seems a way better option...is this the wrong way to look at this?

FYI DC is middle set maths. Sometimes preforming really well and at other times .... hence my need to properly understand whether I should push for higher paper if school wish to play safe.

Lastly CAT score above 120 ... but requires extra time for processing. If CATs decided this DC would probably be in top sets across the board which isn’t the case ...

My dd decided to take double science but then took a real interest in engineering this year and wants to take physics A level. The school said this would be ok as long as she gets a 6-6 or above as they call it I.e 6 in all the papers that include each science. There is a foundation and a higher level paper in science and she would need to take the higher paper. So doing double science is not a problem but you need the grades but if you already know you want to do science at A level and beyond triple science would be a better choice as you would learn more content that could help you at the higher levels.

Ofqual gave out guidance before the final tier entries this year suggesting that Foundation papers should be seen as the norm and that students should not be entered for Higher unless consistently working at a 6 or above.

Oh coming back to the CAT scores my school does have this as a basis for target grades but they always look at if your dc is performing below, at target, or above target and this is always taken into consideration along with the teachers professional opinion. My dd only has a target of 4 in maths but she is still in the top set and doing the higher paper as she is consistently above target.

Our school does the Edexcel board and offers both double and triple science. No concern about taking double science however is this tiered as well? Wanted to also understand if it was all 3 sciences combined to give 2Gcse or whether the child picked 2 out of the 3 (eg physics and biology) leaving the third out.

Double science is tiered and you do 2 papers in each of the 3 sciences, so 6 papers in total. They must either all be higher or all foundation, you can't mix and match.

Also, the idea that you have to achieve almost max make on a foundation paper, be it Maths or science to gain grade 5 seems a lot and just thought taking the higher paper gave a child the opportunity to score a 7, 6, 5 or 4... which seems a way better option...is this the wrong way to look at this?

It isn't almost max. For maths foundation paper it is 60-70% to get a 5, so that is still quite a lot wrong. Higher paper questions are much harder (for maths at least, not familiar with science). A grade 5 student is likely to be faced with not being able to even attempt 50%+ of the higher maths paper - half of it is aimed at differentiating grades 7-9. Can you imagine sitting in 4.5 hours of exams only being able to attempt a few questions?

FYI DC is middle set maths. Sometimes preforming really well and at other times .... hence my need to properly understand whether I should push for higher paper if school wish to play safe.

This is where I am too with my DD. If he is borderline they'll make a decision quite late on. The question you might need to answer is risking a pass in the hope of a higher grade v if your DS makes too many silly mistakes.

double science is still all three sciences, just in less depth/with less content

Maths foundation AQA last year you had to get 161/240 to achieve a grade 5, so a long way off full marks.

If a child is a likely grade 6 they should be entered for higher for sure.

X-post with teen but yes, I personally think the key thing is how much of the higher maths paper you can access if you are a grade 4/5 student...how dispiriting to look at question after question and think, well, I can't do THAT one either 😢

Also, the idea that you have to achieve almost max make on a foundation paper, be it Maths or science to gain grade 5 seems a lot and just thought taking the higher paper gave a child the opportunity to score a 7, 6, 5 or 4... which seems a way better option...is this the wrong way to look at this?

Yes, it’s the wrong way to look at it. In maths last year you needed 57% on Foundation to get a 4 and 70% to get a 5, so nothing like maximum marks.
On Higher you needed 21% to get a grade 4 and 33% to get a grade 5.
At least 20% of the questions are the same on both papers. This means to get the same grade on the higher paper, you need to be getting a higher percentage of marks from hard questions.

A student who is heading for a grade 4 should be doing Foundation without question. There is little point in preparing them for an exam where they are aiming to only get a fifth of the questions right - totally dispriting and potentially they could crash and burn if the wrong questions came up.

I’d also enter a grade 5 student for Foundation, I’ve had more success with this and I think it’s just a nicer experience mathematically.

If they’ve got a chance of a 6 they should be doing higher. By the time tier of entry decisions are finally made, there should be exam and mock data to back this decision. BUT there are students who might have a chance at a 6 who really can’t cope with the higher paper because it is so hard and you need to be pretty resilient to be faced with a paper you can’t do most of (grade boundary for a 6 was 45%) so to avoid exam meltdown and potential fail, they may also be entered for Foundation.

It’s a lot more complicated than ‘students should have the chance at getting a 7 so should be entered for higher’. Some students will, based on current attainment, have no chance of getting a 7, and entering them for higher will actually risk their getting a grade at all.

Surely with a CAT maths score of 120 he will definitely be doing higher maths?

Can't claim to be at all expert on this as DS1's (who has just done GCSEs) school doesn't offer foundation but although it is selective it has a long achievement tail who will definitely have CAT scores at mid or low teens and they all take higher.

Having said which, I can't agree more with posters commenting on how awful it would be to sit a maths exam in which one was fully expected to be able to tackle barely half the questions.

I have a daughter who has just taken GCSE's this year and was not a fan of school to say the least, but she did work REALLY hard and is praying for 5's. My eldest sat them 2 yrs ago and got A's and A*'s (8/9)
ENGLISH - there is only 1 paper but within that there are "harder" books which push the higher grades. The school makes the choice depending on what set your child is in.
MATHS - in Foundation the highest grade you can get is a 5 but the questions reflect this and the subjects are easier. The Higher paper is marked accordingly. There is no point putting your child in for Higher if they are going to struggle and end up getting a 3 or 4.
SCIENCE - combined is 6 papers, triple is 9 papers. There is so much more work in triple that again, your child really does need to be in higher sets to cope with it. Combined takes all 6 papers (Biology Chemistry & Physics) and averages them to give 2 overall grades. I can't emphasise enough how hard triple is and you could end up with 1 high grade and 2 very low grades.

I work in a secondary school and we are always getting parents who want to push there child into the higher routes but they are not up to it. You really do have to take the teachers advice. If my daughter gets a 5 in all 10 GCSE's I will be ecstatic.
And for all those not there yet, I can't recommend SENECA enough as a revision aid for those who are more visual learners.

Hope this helps

Le5ley, I think that you are confusing English Language and English Literature, as many people do. (This really annoys English teachers, as we are generally working our arses off teaching two GCSEs to full-sized classes in an insufficient lesson allocation!)

OP I teach AQA, which is very popular. English Language and English Literature are each examined by two separate exams:

Language - 2 x 1hr 45 min exams, no tiers
Literature - 1 x 1hr 30 min exam, 1 x 2hr 15 min exam, no tiers

As you state, there is a wide choice of texts for the latter. The texts studied will be determined by a combination of teacher choice and class ability unless you have a control freak HT like mine. Literature exams are now closed book, so pupils have to learn key quotations. This freaks them out, but I think it helps them to write better answers as they don't waste time slowly leafing through the text in the exams.

alisonmb "This all begs the question why anyone would do triple science, because it's all about getting the best grades, I have no answer, nor do I understand why my child is doing 8 GCSEs and that is considered as acceptable as kids in private schools doing 12!"

It depends what you think education is for. IS it all just about scoring grades? My STEM-orientated teen would have been bored stiff doing double or combined science and maths without Further Maths. It was about greater satisfaction in learning.

Our school (state comprehensive) had the top sets doing huge lists of GCSEs. Mine did 13 in the end. Madness, IMO, and it was obvious that our local independent schools were concentrating on fewer numbers (8 or 9 top) and potentially higher grades.

My elder ten was not academically overwhelmed by the number of subjects, but it did mean that the list included subjects in which they had no interest or care about - and that showed in the grades. A big list of A*s / 9s and an 8 (it was 2 years ago - the crossover year) ...and then a B and a C in the unloved subjects, despite capability.

Teacakes mine has just finished A levels including Maths and Physics - the Maths was so important to the Physics.

My last place put in a lot of work before decisions were made about which tier kids were put into for the final papers - they spent out on independent invigilators and set up the halls just as they would be for the final exams for every practice and mock paper, mainly so exam conditions wouldn't be a surprise to the kids/intimidating, but partly to see which paper would suit the borderline students. They started this three years ago.

Most spent all but the first ten minutes or so with their heads buried in their arms on the desks. Some cried, some stormed out. Marking the papers (I helped out with this) meant you spent your time sifting through blank pages in case they'd attempted something somewhere - they were lucky to have answered more than the first five questions.

After the first trial, they gave all but the most able students the foundation paper. It was much calmer, they largely worked throughout the exam time and did much better. Some became ready to try for the higher paper in time that way, because their confidence had been bolstered by succeeding on the foundations. But most were quite happy with staying on foundation, particularly when they tried the higher papers and realised the difference.

It's cruel to force anybody into a situation where they are likely to feel crap - you wouldn't sit a grade 8 violin exam when your only experience is playing the tambourine, because you'd fail. And feel crap about it. And you wouldn't measure your ability at running (when all you've done is a circuit of the park with frequent walks and stops to catch your breath) by putting yourself into the London Marathon in the elite runners category.

Nobody likes being set up to fail - which is pretty much what putting some kids in for the higher papers would do to them when they are already under pressure from all the other exams. It was bad enough for me to sit my maths higher paper and realise that the last 14 mark question was on a topic I had completely missed due to being off school with meningitis and didn't know it existed to be able to catch up on it fucking matrices and fucking teacher for not telling me I'd missed an entire topic. For me, that made the difference between an A* and the B I got, as I'd answered every single question before that correctly, as per the marking breakdown my school got when they saw my grade.

The idea of feeling like that throughout an exam is horrible.

Ad that, MitziK, is exactly why English and English Literature should still be tiered. The less able simply can't access the papers, no matter how thoroughly we try to prepare them. They don't have the vocabulary necessary to read the extracts in English Language, or the organisational skills to write essays in Literature.

It makes me very cross, to put it mildly. Gove is a tw@t

*And!

@le5ley2001 - triple science is NOT 9 papers, it is six papers, each 1hr 45 mins. It has changed since your DC took gcse (if they were getting letter grades).

At my kids' school they generally make the decision about borderline higher/foundation maths candidates after mocks in Year 11. You can opt for foundation earlier if you are sure. Obviously some candidates are clearly in either camp before this.

One of my DCs will almost certainly get a 5 in foundation maths, but could very easily have failed higher due to the grade boundaries expressed above. We've opted for the secure pass rather than risk a fail and a reset in Yr12. Nobody who is that borderline should be doing A level maths anyway!

Combined science is a narrower study of each of the three sciences giving two GCSEs rather than three. Again you can enter at either foundation or higher level.

Disappointingly English is not tiered. The current papers are not fit for purpose and are inaccessible for many. I'm in the Gove is a fool and a bastard camp.

Secondary school teacher here. English no longer has tiers so in theory grades available to all but it is harder than it used to be. Triple v dual science. This includes all three sciences but the triple version has greater depth . Is seen by some as more academic but if your child is keener on the humanities it gives them more other options to choose from.

At dd's school the choice of Literature texts were determined by which class sets the school already owned/could afford to buy! Dd's teacher wanted to do Pride 7 Prejudice with a group of higher ability mostly girls but they had to do Christmas Carol because the school already owed them.

Even if selected for higher Maths & Triple Science GCSEs, you can ask to have them moved into the foundation groups. DD was in for the tougher exams, but the course was very high pressure & even though she is very bright, she has health problems that can limit her. She coped really badly with the pressure & a personality clash with her science teacher meant she started to hate a subject that she'd always loved & wanted a career in.

I was told there was no cap on the mark they can get in the foundation& double science exams which is still 3 sciences, just they don't spend so much time learning the harder stuff in class. She was so stressed by the pressure she felt due to the higher courses, that she would never have got through it.

To qualify for higher courses it's not just top marks in subjects, but high attitude to learning & attendance scores too. Though I argued the attendance score part as it penalises kids with chronic health problems & disability. School were fine to drop the attendance bit. I found the ATL score pencilled kids with severe anxiety too, so they wavered that too