GCSEs

[Flyhigher]

Exam boards in Wales and Northern Ireland will do the same this year, which means results across the UK should be more similar to 2019, having been slightly higher last year.

Bbc reported this.
Does that mean that they are marking these guys down again?
This year had loads of disruption. Constantly being told the year 11's were more important. After missing two years of school.

I sincerely hope examiners take this into account.

Grading, too, has been getting back to normal after top grades soared in 2020 and 2021, when exams were cancelled and results were based on teachers' assessments.
In England, grades were brought back in line with pre-Covid levels last year.
Exam boards in Wales and Northern Ireland will do the same this year, which means results across the UK should be more similar to 2019, having been slightly higher last year.

Full quote.

Examiners simply apply the mark schemes. Nothing is taken into account other than whether what is written meets the criteria.

Grade boundaries don't exist until the papers are marked.

So do govt decide the grade boundaries?

I am guessing they do. Govt/Education Dept decides the grade boundaries and ultimately what grades kids get.

If they are going back to 2019 they aren't being marked down, are they? If according to your argument they are still impacted then if anything their results will be worse than 2019. It is the 2020 and 2021 that were marked up (so to minimise unfairness to specific children/schools more impacted), then 2022 and 2023 graduating back to standard.

"Exam boards work on a bell curve of awarding grades and they are only finalised once all marks are accounted for and final checking is completed. They vary each year depending on the ability of the cohort, how well students have answered the questions, and comparing the standard of grades from previous exam series."

Therefore if an exam is pitched too high and lots get lower marks than expected then the curve accommodates that and instead of awarding a child a grade 2 based on last year's grade boundary they instead get a grade 4 because each set of students is only compared to their own cohort; how well they performed.

For an actual example, my child sat the higher maths paper and we were told by the maths department that roughly 50% of the content determines the 7-9 grade ie the questions are too hard for those performing at a grade 5 or 6 level. The 7 is determined by the grade curve but then the 9 is a worked percentage of that on a set formula and the 8 is smack bang in the middle of the 7 and 9 I believe.

My son achieved his one grade 7 in English Lit (lowest grade for him) which the exact same score the previous year was an 8. Therefore more children performed better than he did that year and it really is the way to think about it.

There is nothing fair about GCSEs, it comes down to the school, the parents, the child, their peer group, their motivation and determination, so many factors go into it but we have to measure children somehow and sadly this is it. All they can do is their absolute best.

It's all very difficult. But I suspect state schools were affected most by the pandemic.
In my experience they threw everything at the year 11's in those years and neglected the other years.

I'm going to try to not look at the grades or it will annoy me!

I'm not sure what year group you are referring to.

Year 11s at the start of Covid (2020) were horribly let down by exams that were not going to be cancelled and then were cancelled and by assessment that varied by school and was not moderated. And schools didn't bother with them at all once the exams were cancelled leaving them, in a lot of cases, unprepared for sixth form work. They certainly weren't the year group that had everything thrown at them.

Yes, but...State schools are nearly every school.
A child doing gcses now was in year 7 in 2020, and y8 in 2021.
I am not saying they will all have caught up, but I can't see it being unreasonable to be back at 2019 standards.

No year group “wins” really. Covid lockdown was pretty crap for everyone but the theory is that kids being examined in England this year have had “long enough” to bounce back.

Despite central government telling us for decades that a single day of primary school missed to go on holiday could cause a grade boundary to be missed at GCSE years and years later.

There is no logic or fairness. How as a manager employing young people I am supposed to keep track of this bullsht beats me, “oh this year everyone was given great grades, the next year it was “only” unfair in Wales” etc.

It is bonkers OP. I’m sorry for any young person going through it - the only good bit may be they don’t have the wool pulled over their eyes and see this focus on nine exams grades for the nonsense it has become.

No one had it easy. Definitely. At each level. Next year it will be the ones who missed out on a year 6.

I think the difficulties will be felt for years to come.
Our school lost two years to Covid. Then another year to lots of subs. And only the last two years has teaching been better.
Too big a school.

I really think they have been affected. As have many other state kids.

Absolutely the impact goes on. But I thought this thread was about whether grades should be pegged to an even higher standard than 2019, despite those effects. Two different things.

Yes. Will they be higher this year than in 2019?

I see no good reason why they should be. (Ie why grades should be more generous).
Standards if anything will be lower if covid disruption is still present, so if grades are pegged to 2019 that seem reasonable.

So far DD says the exams have been fairly accesible. Let's see if the next few and the paper 2's are harder.

It's all very difficult. But I suspect state schools were affected most by the pandemic.
In my experience they threw everything at the year 11's in those years and neglected the other years.

I had a y11 in the first covid year and the school were throwing nothing. Boris came on tv and announced the exams were cancelled and they came home never to return. School didn’t even throw them a “good luck in the future” email.

@shepherdsangeldelight our school did work more with year 11s. But yes they probably did just leave them once they had no exams.
I'm still not over how they treated the kids in Covid. Didn't mark any work at all.

Exam boards in Wales and Northern Ireland will do the same this year, which means results across the UK should be more similar to 2019, having been slightly higher last year.

Do the same what?

I think that you need to think that on the whole for their future in terms of A level entry, college, apprenticeship, university, etc. they are competing with others in their year group and possibly the years above and below.

The real peak years are substantially older, most of them will be second year of university already. Although Wales and NI kept some of the inflation previous years they will not be a substantial proportion of the population and if they kept it like that then universities would just start to require higher grades from their exam boards.

In general GCSEs and even A levels are not particularly important beyond maths and English a few years out from school. As long as your dc has the grades they need to get onto the next course compared to their peers sitting exams at the same time they will be fine.

So they worked more with them for about 2 weeks? Just to put this into proportion.