GCSE '18s (19) - New Beginnings?

[whistl]

Following on from the GCSE 2018 threads as our DC enter year 12.
This the first thread in our new home in further education

Left home 7.25 this morning, will collect from the station at 17.45.

Can I have a quick rant about target grades? DD has been set a target grade for each subject of A. This is despite getting either a grade 8 or grade 9 in each of her A level subjects. Her overall GCSE results included a stray grade 6 for Spanish and she flunked further maths, so they won't set her A*s as targets. On the plus side, she should be able to exceed the targets, but on the downside, this has effectively put a black mark against her name and they won't put her in the Oxbridge potential group. Grrr!

@bpisok
DS3 (Y10) is very good at GCSE level Computer Science and wants to study it at university, but I do wonder whether he would cope with Maths A-level. He should get a 7 or 8 for Maths GCSE but is not a natural mathematician like DS2.

Stickerrocks that's enough to be ruled out of even considering Oxbridge?

What is your DD hoping to do as a degree? if it doesn't need a high level of maths or the same skills that are required for her B subject, then that's a bit reactionary.

I remember hitting my Maths ceiling in the second year of the A-level course. The mechanics was fine. We didn't do statistics. Up to a point the pure maths felt straightforward and instinctive, but when they started asking me to integrate trigonometry, it stopped making sense. It felt like they were making up a different rule for every example we looked at.
I managed to get a A, but that topic

... was not the reason why I got the A.

sticker we've got a similar situation. Dd is targeted B/C for normal maths and A/B for further maths. She got a 9 in maths but her friend got an 8 and is targeted an A.

Her tutor told her it's because of her English language grade dragging down her average marks.

Luckily dd is delighted not to be under pressure!

Real analysis was the point I hit the wall in maths. It was 3rd year at university and i was clinging to an understanding by my finger tips with everything else, but I completely hit the wall in real analysis. I couldn't understand the first lecture, and my problems just multiplied from then on.

It has left such a lasting impression on me that I'm already saying to DS1: "Don't do pure maths!"

@Stickerrocks - surely they will reassess those targets as the school year rolls on? So it may not impact Oxbridge applications? Or am I getting how this works wrong?
We were told there would be no targets until Xmas (I think in a previous post I mentioned an IQ test they took in the first week will be combined with the results of the exams they are doing in Oct along with GCSE grades).
In English the teacher told the class that they should not be shocked by the grades they get on the assignment she set yesterday and to not expect anything above a D (previously they were all A star girls). They are going to mark everything from this point as though they were producing the essays in their A Level exam.....that will up the anti (they all like a challenge hahaha).

I'm sure they will reassess & TBH we don't care if they don't put her in the group receiving potential Oxbridge support. Tthey had over 50 Oxbridge offers this year, so they're not short of applicants. It just seems slightly ridiculous that someone with more 9s than 8s, more 8s than 7s and a stray grade 6 has been told to target As rather than A*s. It doesn't seem particularly aspirational at this point.

Kick English language affecting your maths grade? Surely the whole point is that you've dropped your weaker subjects to concentrate on those you enjoy foremost & can excel in.

Stickerrocks that’s ridiculous! Targets are pretty meaningless at this stage.
DS is miffed because one of his precious free periods will be taken up by mentoring tomorrow! I think it’s good the school cares about his study skills etc. I detect a very slight softening of attitude towards maths but DS says a lot of switching goes on at the beginning of term.

Sorry @Stickerrocks I completely misunderstood. The targets are being used to work out who will get the extra support for Oxbridge applications. Is it worth asking if they will flex the rules? At this point the targets are meaninglessness anyway!!!

Well, if she decides to apply, she will regardless of college support. They seem to be treating a 9 as an old A*, an 8 as a A, a 7 as a B etc and ignoring the fact that an 8 & 9 are the same in old money.

The targets are very formulaic based on ALIS and gcse s and fairly meaningless for most. But I guess the downside of the big 6th form colleges where there are 10000 s of students and many Oxbridge applicants etc they have to use an arbitrary criteria. I guess if she was keen a chat with a personal tutor may circumvent the automatic inclusion/cut off. Especially as Oxbridge colleges value excellence in the chosen subject not average grades !!!

Support on this thread will be more use than most schools anyway 😂😂😂😂😂

Seriously, a school with that many applicants should be on the ball byt DD2 found she was being advised by teachers who went there but who didn’t have up to date info. Oxford and Cambridge websites and admissions folk are brilliant at setting out exactly what’s required at each stage and I would say follow that to the letter and you can’t go wrong

Finding it a bit discombobulating not to know how much homework ds is getting or how much work he is doing or whether he s struggling. And they gave no exams or formal tests until after Easter. Hopefully the grade cards (Every two or three weeks may give me a clue). That’s probably as it should be but so different to last year when I was micromanaging daily

Have you got a parent portal? Ours has been full of payment requests so far, but there may be some useful info on there. I've yet to wade through the 42 page pdf info book on expectations etc.

That's crazy, Sticker. It's such early days. Hopefully her predictions will be closer to some sort of sense that these rather odd targets. Targets don't really matter for the students, it's predictions that count, (except for that Oxbridge potential group) but that certainly shouldn't stop her if she fancies Oxbridge.

DS2 starts his HNC tomorrow and DS1 is back to Warwick on Saturday so term really starting here.

DS3 is one of those who really enjoys maths. I don't think it's something he chooses to do in his spare time, though. Luckily he's not aiming for Oxbridge!

Best of luck with that Ellen. DD1 went back last week (3rd year uni after a placement year). DD2 starts on Saturday (1st year after a gap year) so start of new chapter for us all round. I will miss them but excited for them and I have to say I am secretly looking forward to the house to myself for a while 😀. Though it’s not been a straightforward journey for DD2 so slightly nervous as to how it’s going to go on a number of levels. Hopefully it will be fine but I am not making any assumptions just yet.

So I did a bit of digging before DD went up to bed with a cold. Apparently the IQ test was something to do with Durham University and ALIS. They did a bunch of tests and then had to fill in a personal form (parents education, ethnicity, whether parents are together, how often they see their dad etc). She said that the school doesn't see the personal form but it is taken into account by Durham when doing the report. Then this is combined with gcse grades and gives a prediction which is subject specific (so an A of you are doing maths but a C for English for example). The teachers may moderate the results based on the October exams.
...does this make any sense? Is this ALIS? If not have your DC done this?

I wanted to go to Warwick, but caved in when I had an unconditional offer and headed west to Wales. My life would have been very different if I had gone there - no DH, no DD and I'd almost certainly be living elsewhere.

A Sliding Doors moment, Sticker? If course it's really Coventry but Warwick sounds posher.

Yup this is ALIS. And MIDYIS is the GCSE equivalent. Durham also run some school entrance exams in a similar vein as they're meant to test innate ability and be tutor proof. So the midyis and Alis is meant to give you a 'target' based on cognitive ability alone. Then most schools then give 'working at' and 'predicted' grades too based on actual mocks etc or teachers viewpoint. At DS school their attainment grades on their regular report cards are meant to be based on their targets ie a high grade if working above target or you might get a low grade if you have a really high target but not reaching it - most teachers don't seem to do this and just give actual attainment grades not relative.

Ok so now I am confused (what's new!). @Stickerrocks post said that her DDs results were impacted by the dodgy Spanish result. If it becomes subject specific and she's not doing languages why would it affect the the other grades?
I can get that a bad GCSE English result or a low score in the verbal reasoning test could affect history for example......
(Sorry sticker, not picking on your DD but everyone else seems to know about this whereas I don't understand)

Not sure of the exact mechanics but perhaps average grades or grade profile impacts on the scores.