GCSE PE

[everydaysaschoolda]

Please can anyone explain this to me.

My daughter has been assessed on 1500m for GCSE PE practical assessment, she runs for our local club, she has qualified for inter counties and county level. Runs all the local events. She scored 14.5. This score is from the PE dept at her school. My daughter has run since primary school and is really dedicated, she worked so hard to get PBs especially for GCSE PE

Now I know it isn’t about comparing pupils but another girl scored 15. She only took up athletics for GCSE PE, my daughter bet her in every race by 20-30 seconds. This pupil did no running outside of school and hasn’t qualified at any higher level.

This just seems so unfair, should I contact the school to ask them to re-assess or am I being THAT parent?

Happy for someone to explain this to me if I’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t educated in England and didn’t do GCSEs. Thank you

All students have aright to appeal any NEA element of any subject - although she will need to wait until all three sports are assessed and marks awarded , I assume. (not a PE teacher but teach an NEA subject)

It's not really the mark that is appealed but the school proving its processes are in line with exam board requirements and are robust.

The school needs to make a right to appeal known to all students.

i do query whether PE teachers have the knowledge to mark 20+ different sports many of which they have presumably never taken part in.

Isn’t that a bit like saying an English teacher cannot possibly teach Animal Farm when they only like Victorian literature? Or a German teacher (me) cannot interrogate a student about their special subject of Bayern München if they are not a football fan? For sure a PE teacher can acquire the necessary knowledge if they don’t have it. They don’t have to be able to pay the sport any more than I need to know all about a German football team.

you basically need to be able to do the 3 sports in advance of starting as there isn’t really any attempt to teach them at school.

Sounds like you have had a poor PE dept (unusual IME – PE is about the only subject that has plenty of teachers to pick from to fill a role) if they were not prepared to teach PE to the GCSE students! But IME you absolutely do not need to be doing three sports outside school before you start. I already posted this but DS had a friend who got an 8 and the only sport he did outside school was athletics – basically sprints and LJ. He played no team sport at all apart from in school. Maybe we were lucky but their PE dept was very enthusiastic and much loved. PE was a very popular GCSE and even at A level there were about 15 taking it.

Sorry to rant but I do feel that PE GCSE (and A level) gets a bad rap esp on MN. My DS really enjoyed both and they set him up well for his biological sciences degree (along with A level bio obvs).

The other dad sounds like those kids at school who pretend they've done no revision. "My daughters better than your daughter, and she didn't even have to try...!"
By all means query DDs mark but I'd take anything the other dad says about his DDs effort with a pinch of salt.

There's more to it than just the fastest time.

For example one girl in dds year was a blue chip pony show jumper (the highest level of kids jumping ponies worth ££) she scored lower than a kid who learned at riding school & borrowed a farm cob for the video.

It will be things like improvement, training planning etc.

If your dd could already do the sport to a reasonable level then she would have found it harder to show improvement.

I'm guessing also running races have less 'technical' or 'tactical' elements (I don't mean that at all in a derogatory way) & when they are scoring from a short video clip it makes it harder to score - going fast/winning is only one element of the scoring

Loads of technical aspects to running a 1500 actually @Serencwtch - it’s not simply about who’s the fastest. In fact in 1500 it hardly ever is. But I agree, it’s perhaps harder to shoes progress if you are already excellent.

Technique? I remember being cross because my club swimmer ds wasn’t selected for a school tournament - all the splashy boys who got there slightly quicker with crap technique were. Another girl in his class, also a club swimmer, missed out for the same reason. They just picked the fastest, whereas ds and his classmate were at the stage where they were being taught technique (speed comes later - and they would be much faster than the dc who beat them now). The opposite way around to your issue, but I wonder whether the other girl’s technique was better, even though her times aren’t currently as quick.

Oh god! The improvement thing! A friend’s dd was reassured that she could do very well in art (a subject she loves), even though she is not especially talented, because they mark on improvement. A child who is more naturally able could end up with a poorer grade. Is it the same in PE then?

They don’t mark like this in maths...

Agree with this. Have you actually seen the breakdown of marks and compared it to the mark scheme? Which exam board is it?

If it is AQA firstly you have to do 2 distances or 2 events for athletics (so the 1500m is only half the athletics assessement) and then the score is out of 25 with 15 only being the competitive part. The other girl may have got 5 and 10 = 15 and your dd may have got 14.5/15 plus 10 on top?

Contradicting other posters, we were told that times and level of competition DOES matter and that those playing outside of school and in leagues and at county and regional level can score much higher marks because they can fully demonstrate the elements that ask the player to perform under pressure and against suitable opponents. My dc deliberately chose sports that they trained and competed in outside of school for this reason (even though it out more pressure on the filming) for this reason.

It’s in part about the video evidence you provide.

My DC got 23/25 for one sport, 13/25 for another and 14/25 for the third. The 3rd one my DH challenged with the teacher and it was raised slightly.

DC was still disappointed thinking she’d only get a max grade 7 overall.

She is very academic and did plenty of revision and come out with a grade 9. So it’s possible to ace it.

Sorry I forgot to mention, another child in DCs class is nowhere near as sporty as my DC and seemed to get high marks for her footage, so Lord knows what they saw. But she didn’t do well in her assignment or exams so her grade wasn’t great.

Loads of assessments are not really suited to the thing they are assessing. There is a very straightforward and effective method for finding out who is good at running and it isn't a GCSE mark scheme.

Jesus.

You would definitely be THAT parent

There is a very detailed specification online showing what you need to do in each sport and you need to very clearly show those skills. As well as show those skills in a competitive environment. It’s not about improvement and never has been. For example, for swimming, you can’t just be a fast swimmer and share that footage. You need to show two different strokes and show starts, turns, arms only, legs only, underwater sections etc. It’s a pain to film, but if you do it properly you don’t need to be a amazing swimmer to get full marks. DD just swims for a club- not county even- and she got full marks. Same for athletics. Some team sports are very hard to score in as even if you get full marks on the skills section, you are reliant on the team playing well enough for you to demonstrate lots of skills in the match.

Do you know which exam board?

If you Google <Exam Board> GCSE PE specification, you should quite easily be able to find the spec and that will detail what they are assessed on for this part of the qualification.

Eg here's the spec for AQA. It's really more nuanced than "can run faster"
https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/physical-education/gcse/physical-education-8582/specification/scheme-of-assessment

Note you do now have an opportunity to appeal the mark if you feel the mark scheme has been incorrectly applied but I would suggest you only do that if you can identify specifics tbh. (Which I appreciate is difficult to do if you're not a subject specialist - it's a weird system imo)

The specification for AQA athletics is quite clear.

So if it was AQA there would need to be a 2nd event and the marks are across both as stated.

We disregarded PE as a GCSE choice for DC when we went to options evening and spoke to the teachers about it. The impression I got was that the marking was very subjective and the PE teachers definitely had favourites and we got the distinct impression it was all a sham.

Having come out the other end of GCSEs
now I’d say Art is slightly subjective but not as bad, but also very hard to get top (or very low also) marks in - so if your child is aiming for 9s then I’d avoid but a child expecting 4s or 5s might do well with Art. D&T the same.

our school has real issues with the gcse syllabus and is considering dropping it for btec all together. They currently split it looking at kids academic and sporty ability. Their teachers said they would fight shy of putting anyone other than a very sporty top set kid into gcse because the typically expected the practical to bring them down a grade - dd started off in that class but pretty immediately asked to swap to the btec class - she’s on track for a top grade btec whereas she’d be fighting for a 7 in gcse. A few friends of mine with kids in different schools have all said they’ve swapped to btec now exclusively.

Sorry trying to answer all the questions. The mark is out of 20 and exam board is AQA. She did 1500m and 3k which she improved pbs in almost every race, the other girl did the same 2 distances, as far as I know her pbs weren’t as improved as my daughters. She worked so hard to get pbs and ran about 4 times a week

i have emailed the PE dept and haven’t mentioned the other child. I’ve just asked for a breakdown of the marking and said she was a bit disappointed as she worked so hard to improve

Thanks for all your help help and advice

This filming of stuff and then judging by the PE teachers is all very subjective and probably depends on your parents' assistance, which doesn't sound very fair.

The marks for making improvements and learning new skills will have been done by the OPs DD: It's kind of implicit in the fact she got from beginner level to county level.

I don't think GCSE PE marks should be given to the other kids for "trying hard". It should be "first past the post", just like all the other GCSEs.

See the images I shared and the link to the specification another poster shared. It is out of 25 with a 15 and 10 split if AQA.

You need to understand what marks she actually got - was it 14.5 out of 15 or out of 25 (and the same for the other girl if you care).

It can't be out of 20 if it is AQA so there's some gaps here!

It really isn’t about pbs or improvements. They just judge on the races you film. So they are looking for race tactics. Things like starting the race strong but not racing ahead of all the others. Showing good running form in the race and then overtaking people to finishing strongly. If your daughter ran off very fast to get a pb she won’t score that highly as you need to show awareness of those around you.

Yeh I agree, AQA is marked out of 25 for each sport (15 + 10) so there is something not quite right with what you say here @everydaysaschoolda

@CinnamonJellyBeans I don't think GCSE PE marks should be given to the other kids for "trying hard". It should be "first past the post", just like all the other GCSEs. – this is a bit of a simplistic way of looking at it tbh. No one is giving high marks just for trying hard. But neither is it (nor should it be) as simple as first past the post gets the highest mark. Not everyone does a sport you win in after all. Climbing is accepted on some specs for example. How do you win at that? (I mean I know how you get a high mark! It’s an Olympic sport after all. But you don’t win by running fast)

@myladyjane that's interesting about the school's possible move to Btec. In a way it’s a shame as while its a perfectly good qual, it’s very different from the GCSE which DS certainly enjoyed. But I agree, you need to be able as well as sporty. I recall a poster on another thread saying how the PE teacher told the kids at options evening “It’s not just a GCSE in playing footy” which of course a lot of them would like it to be :)

Thank you. I thought it was out of 20 but I’ll check that

I completely agree about art. My dd is also doing art and the teachers certainly have their favourites. It’s a sham!

Thanks so much for this, it’s very helpful. My dd wanted to do xc but was told she couldn’t as it was too difficult to video and she’d get a very low score 🤷‍♀️