All 9s at GCSE….

[CurlewKate]

Less than 1.5% of candidates get all 9s at GCSE. I wonder why so many of them seem to be Mumsnetter’s children! 🤣

It is also completely untrue. A pass in both is recognised as a Level 2 qualification by JCQ under the European Qualifications Framework. iGCSEs are designed by Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) which is part of the same exam board that own OCR, a UK exam board for GCSEs and A levels. There is considerable crossover, with staff writing and examining for both.

Pearson/Edexcel also provide iGCSEs. Another UK exam board.

Nonsense re IGCSEs being easier. Think about the cohort they are up against the IGCSE candidates across the world have such an advantage with Maths & Languages they are competing against the best global minds. Total rubbish saying they’re easier.

I think we have established that the poster in question might just possibly maybe have got the logic of grading arse about face

It’s completely untrue and I say that as someone who marks both

My goodness, you are talking nonsense. The only possible way that English, for example, could be regarded as being ‘easier’ is that you can take a coursework component if you wish (many schools are not opting for this now because of AI worries). The actual papers are in no way easier and some parts are substantially more challenging (the Shakespeare question for example). The poetry, play etc are at exactly the same level. In Maths and Sciences, IGCSE actually covers a lot more content. They are also not written abroad. Cambridge and Pearson are the biggest providers - the same people who write OCR and Edexcel. Lots of us mark papers for GCSE and IGCSE. Schools opt for them for a variety of reasons but the main one is that they are recognised internationally.

🤣 I get your point but I suspect some are actually telling the truth considering the schools that a lot of the regular posters’ children attend. For starters, some will be including igcses which official figures don’t include. I’ve tried to find the figures for specific schools which have been repeatedly mentioned on the threads (which tend to be ss grammars) - with limited success. However, one of them had 12 students achieve all 9s last year and another had 26 students. They are obviously quite high for individual schools and might explain at least some of the high proportion of all 9ers on here!

Spot on

🤣

I would like to know what percentage of state educated comprehensive school children achieve all 9s. After all, grammar school children are bound to do well aren't they?

This casts some light for 2019-2022 (unfortunately couldn't find more recent data)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/611faf1ed3bf7f63b2269066/Students_achieving_all_grade_9s_in_GCSE_by_centre_type.csv/preview

It's a little difficult to interpret as "Academy" could mean a selective or non-selective school.

There are some -er- interesting trends for the 2020 and 2021 Covid years when no exams were sat. I would not dream of commenting on teacher assessments, but it's clear that independent and state selective schools think they have a much higher percentage of children capable of getting all 9s than comprehensives do. Which probably matches up with what is seen on MN.

Wow, that is a very low bar everyone is accepting for state education!

Why are you all so proud of this?

I think these days the educational achievements of the parents and purchase of supporting school materials/tutoring is far more relevant than type of school. At least in London, that is now the status quo. The top sets in any school are heavily dominated by the kids of those types of families.

So I think if you went to a crap school, have poor unmotivated parents, then that is a completely different matter than if you went to a crap school and have middle class parents who went to uni themselves.

State selective schools and selective private schools have rigorous entrance tests at age 11 and vast majority of kids are greater depth KS2 across the board, so naturally that cohort are expected to do well at GCSEs. From their CAT4 and KS2 scores alone, it’s pretty much the expectation. Hence the Covid results. In real life some don’t revise enough or have poor revision habits or freak out in exams, but the expectation to achieve was there through the data? Especially in state grammars. If you pretend these kids are not clever or didn’t work hard, it’s just disingenuous. Most are also supported at home.

The university system could change if it wanted to be more IQ based rather than attainment. That is their choice. It suits them to take the highest attainers who are well prepared.

This is such an important point and it be that is often overlooked. Also it’s important not to judge a school by simple results alone. Too many people look at results and assume a school is crap without considering cohort and catchment.

That's what progress 8 was for.

Yep.

Reading the GCSE/IGCSE debate with interest. I have had DD1 at state doing all ordinary gcses, while DD2 has switched at year 10 between the two systems and does a mix of gcses and igcses.

She finds most of it easier at new school(and coursework helps in her case for history and english). English they don't have to do shakespeare which totally shocked me!

However, she has been working with my mother in law a bit on the maths, where she was in set 1 in both systems.

Mother in law, who was head of maths in a good state and worked with DD1 too, says IGCSE is 'not harder but different'. Less word problems, more pure maths, more marks loaded on the harder questions at the end. There is no non-calculator paper in IGCSE, so she isn't picking up marks for finding mental maths relatively easy.

Horses for courses I guess on that one. DD2 finds the final questions very hard indeed - which she didn't on the GCSE. But that may just be because her particular weakness is spatial and she really really hates 3d trig.

Proof will be when she gets the actual results though.

All 9s didn't get all their 9s this year/last year, they've got them since 9s first came in and parents pop on to threads to talk about them anyway, over and over. So it seems like more.
All 9s didn't get all 9s, they also got a 6 in drama but don't count that.
My DN got all 9s (I heard her tell DS), she didn't mention her two 7s to him as they were not in her core subjects. She did totally brilliantly but she didn't get all 9s.

Some people are outright lying, some are remembering the As their DC got back in the day and calling that all 9s and as others have said, it's fairly likely that some of the parents of all 9s are on mumsnet (might even join just to talk about it).

Even one 9 is a great achievement out in the real world, I am in great admiration of the kids who get them.

Oh god I'm one of those t**ts as I was asking about contextualised GSCEs for university entrants. But similarly I've wondered how it's possible for so many posters to have children getting all 9s and 4 A stars when it's statistically unusual.

What I would say, is that it is not as unusual in certain milieu. My daughter worked out that she knew at least 5% of those who had - this was ascertained during Reading when all the attendees were talking about their results. Of course they could be lying, but they were a load of posh kids from selective London private schools. In her school, I think 20% or so got straight 9s.

I would also say that I don't think it's a good thing or a good measure. Said daughter didn't take further maths, despite having done the course, as she didn't want to risk the full set. Another child thinks she did 'so badly' as she got 3 8s among hers. I'm most proud of my child that got a 6 for the subject they were absolutely bloody awful at and the school wanted them to drop - this was a TAG 6 and all. They now complain that it mucks up their results but I think it's better to have done it, less well, that to not take the exam having done all the years of work.

I remember asking a friend why schools had introduced the numerical GSCE system and she said that 9s were just another stick for perfectionist girls (and boys) to hit themselves with.

(PS I don't earn six figures, my chidren don't play any musical instruments or partake in sport at an elite level. They don't eat like a horse, aren't hugely tall and skinny as a rake. On the plus side, my husband doesn't have a mysterious hobby).

P8 does not correct for demographics. I posted this on another thread recently, but it's relevant here too...
The University of Bristol have formed an "Adjusted Progress 8" measure which takes into account pupil age, gender, ethnicity, EAL, SEN, FSM, and residential deprivation.
Report here: https://www.northernpowerhousepartnership.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Fairer-Schools-Index-Report-1.pdf
Full data set here: https://www.northernpowerhousepartnership.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2022_23_FSI_WEB_VERSION-1.xlsx
They are making a case for the DfE to formally adopt this measure and report it alongside P8.
Key findings are:

• Adjusting for pupil background would see the national league table rankings of almost a quarter of schools (23.7%) change by over 500 places.
• Adjusting for pupil background would lead 48% of schools currently judged ‘Well Below Average’ under Progress 8 to move up out of this banding.
• The high average Progress 8 score seen in London more than halves when adjusted for pupil background. This is principally due to these schools teaching high proportions of high-progress ethnic groups. In contrast, the low average Progress 8 score seen in the North East improves substantially after adjustment due to the high proportions of poor and White British pupils taught in this region.
• Other dramatic changes are seen for grammar schools and faith schools whose high average Progress 8 scores reduce substantially once the educationally advantaged nature of their pupils is considered. In contrast, the low average pupil progress seen in sponsored academies improves once the disadvantaged nature of their pupils is recognised.
• Progress 8 effectively punishes schools teaching high proportions of disadvantaged pupils for the national underperformance of these groups.
• Progress 8 can therefore be argued to give too much emphasis to schools, rather than Government or society, as primarily responsible for the national underperformance of these groups. In contrast, adjusted versions of Progress 8 can be viewed as rebalancing the responsibility more on society and Government, rather than schools.

@meeningless - thank you. That makes for very relevant reading. I agree schools should have that adjustment in more deprived areas so they are not constantly bashed but praised for actual progress, based on underlying factors.

However, we do need to ask the key question.
Why do some cultures (like Chinese and Indian) have such strong educational values, regardless of wealth and class, and should we be learning from them and trying to instil them?
What are strong educational values? Why do they appear to be so class and wealth based amongst the White British demographic? How do you break that down and change the value system? How can “society” do that? By society they probably mean the reeducation of the parents and their cultural and educational values.

"However, we do need to ask the key question. Why do some cultures (like Chinese and Indian) have such strong educational values, regardless of wealth and class?"

But is it really regardless of wealth or class? In this country, those demographic populations represent only the aspirational, geographically and upwardly mobile classes. Wealth is less relevant.

Many of us "white british middle class" folk are only one generation away from working class, but were also aspirational, geographically and upwardly mobile.

So I don't think your question is the right one. The right question is how do we help people from non-aspirational backgrounds become aspirational. The answer partly lies with education, but it can never be the only answer.

Aspiration inevitably means more stress, hard work and sacrifices. Many people just don't want all this, they're perfectly happy as they are, why would anyone want to "make" them aspirational?