New GCSEs - do DDs grades rule anywhere out?

[PancakeMum6]

DD did very well in her GCSEs (best in her school) but she’s at an underperforming comp so it’s hard to compare. As they don’t sit AS levels these will be the only grades the universities will see, so we’re trying to work out if her grades are ‘good enough’ for us to bother looking at Oxbridge/Durham/UCL/Bristol etc. as there’s lots of conflicting information. We want to work out where realistic universities are before starting on the open day process!

She’s doing A levels in English Lit, Arabic and French, and she wants to study either French and Arabic, French and English, or French and another language at beginner level.

At GCSE she got
A*s - Arabic, media.
9s - English Lit, maths, French.
9-8 in combined science.
8s - art, English lang.

She’s been reading all sorts about “percentages of As” and can’t tell how the new “8s” are considered. At her school they were described as high As/low As.

Re MFL numbers - dd does French a level in a, class of 2, full number of lessons too. In fact only when looking at 6th form options for ds2 have I come across this fewer lessons thing - one school we looked at was only offering 3 lessons a week for PE a level as do few chose it 🙄.

DD's school also runs music with one student (there were two but one switched after a few days). No other MFL in yr 13 tho, despite 4 people wanting to do Spanish :( tbh a cohort of 6 for French is relatively loads

Sorry for typos, don't like using my phone but MN won't work on ipad (grr)

DD originally wanted to apply to Oxford to read French but has actually been deterred by accounts of how many students are bilingual from birth. Despite good grades she reckoned she'd be at a huge disadvantage with never having been to France (she has now been with a friend, for a week, post GCSE). It's a real shame because she does seem to have a real knack but these stories of DC holidaying frequently in the target language country, many of whom are half French/ German/ Russian etc, do put even very able DC off.

Pancake although the schools results may be low, it sounds like a really enriching place to go to school overall. What an amazing melting pot :)

Your dds results are superb. This is what Cambridge have to say...

The goat farm idea is great! I did July and August in a campsite restaurant in France before university-made money, and got considerably better at French! also found a husband but that's another story

Yeah I did MFL at uni 30+ years ago and even then there was a significant proportion of native speakers and most of the rest seemed to have lived in Germany for the last six months 🙄 quite a learning curve, but a challenge is good, it's salutary to discover you are not the best (I was at my school!)

Yes I believe where we are is an amazing place to grow up/learn - we chose the school over other “better” schools because of the diversity and opportunities for refugee children and children from all manner of backgrounds and countries. We’re the only English family on our street of about 30 houses. In other parts of the same postcode you can have whole streets with no-one who isn’t white British on them as the communities are somewhat divided in some areas.

The bilingual detail is interesting goodbyestranger, I didn’t know about that. We knew about A level language grade boundaries being high because of native speakers though so I suppose that follows.

And Bubbles from what I know a lot of schools here are really floundering re languages. DD’s year only had two languages (Arabic and French) offered at GCSE but we’re definitely grateful for even that much - one school had to stop offering languages at A level one year. DD1 was one of two people in her A2 French class (down from 10 at AS! Only half of them passed I believe...), and one of her friends was at a grammar school that had to merge with another nearby school for German because only 4 people took it. All round languages are massively undersubscribed for some reason.

The goat farm has been arranged almost totally by DD on her own - DD1 had a friend who did it a few years ago, who knew about it because her sister had a friend who’d done it a few years before, so she put DD2 in contact. I imagine there must be other similar opportunities. here’s hoping she doesn’t find a husband

The point about 5 UCAS choices is excellent - DD1 is in the process of applying now (post A level though, which makes it easier to see where’s realistic!) and has applied for a full range (A*AA down to BBC). She got the lower range offers within 24 hours which was a nice boost

it's salutary to discover you are not the best (I was at my school!)

DD2 definitely needs this!! She’s not arrogant at all but she’s constantly acknowledging that she never really knows how well she’s doing because her essays are being compared with those by some people who’ve only been speaking English for 2 years! She’s conscious that it’s not a fair comparison.

We were at a Cambridge year 12 day last week and they didn’t even memtion 9s if that’s any use. In the subject talk ds said they referred to 7s and 8s . They were also at pains to say that they fon’t Game set grades for GCSE ( not sure about that as certainly know people who were told they were rejected because of GCSE grades) but your dds. Grades are great and I don’t think would rule her out of anything

titchy her GCSEs will be more important for recruiting unis, provided her A level predictions meet their standard offer

I disagree. A level predictions for recruiters are more important than GCSE grades. If the standard offer is Astar, A, A, applicants with those grades should receive an offer, regardless of GCSE grades - unless they are shockingly bad with no contextual explanation.

Super recruiters (Ox, Cam) will require additional tests eg HAT, LNAT, STEP

Ok titchy, we'll agree to disagree about what I called recruiting unis - by which I mean the ones with far more applicants than places. Being predicted the A level grades won't get you into those and Oxford hasn't stopped looking at GCSEs - the uni OP is really asking about.

As you may be aware Goodbye, DD was offered a place at Oxford for MFL. We didn’t holiday in France (or Italy) and her father and I are not remotely competent in any foreign language. (Some would wonder how we achieved O levels in English!) I don’t have an O level in French. So, don’t let your DD be put off. As I am sure you know, Oxford tutors are looking for more than current ability. They want to see who can improve and flourish with their teaching. They don’t exclusively choose native speakers.

Of course universities do have native speakers and I’m a firm believer that these should be identified to the universities. They should probably be flagged at A level. I do know parents who were both teachers of German (one being German) who coached their DDs extensively. This was a major advantage but I’m proud of my DD as she did just as well starting from zero. Also, speaking a language doesn’t always give you an advantage with regard to a deeper understanding of literature, writing essays and overall intelligence!

Pancake: the school should have a marking scheme based on the curriculum they are following. Comparing to others in the school is pointless. They have to mark her against their marking scheme and assessment criteria, not compare her to others. Hopefully they are doing this and I suggest her GCSE results show they are competent.

Goodbye: the recruiting universities are the ones who recruit to fill the spaces. Selective universities select the best candidates and there is competition for places. Generally this is the terminology.

Oh yes how daft I meant selecting not recruiting Bubbles. My bad titchy, I definitely need to do one thing at a time!

Yes I picked up that your DD got an offer Bubbles and that info is encouraging and useful for all those on the thread with potential university linguists. I think DD4 is at a disadvantage with one language anyhow though, certainly for Oxford I'd have thought. But there still do seem to be a lot of native speakers at Oxford according to the other DC. I don't really understand why native speakers would apply for their own language tbh, surely there are far more avenues to explore if you're lucky enough to be bilingual from birth.

I guess it's ok to learn that you're not the best if you mistakenly think you are, but that's not one of my DCs' faults so doesn't really apply.

Far more interesting avenues I meant. (Doing very badly today!).

It is really encouraging to hear of an inspiring state comp that values languages. We have just been told that our school will not run MFL at A-level anymore if the numbers are not “viable”. The future looks very bleak indeed.

I’m sure your DCs are correct Goodbye. However there is room for others. I think that some native speakers can be so good at the tests and be coached readily they fulfil the requirements for entry. Having said that, I’ve no doubt Maths undergrads who have Maths teachers for parents also have an advantage. Another friend who is half German did German at university. I think it’s just an easier way to get into university but in my view it doesn’t show an enquiring mind beyond what you have experienced already. If universities make it too difficult for non native speakers then MFL will die a bit more!

I'm 100% with you on identifying native speakers Bubbles.

I think other countries value languages far more than we do. We seem very insular and no doubt Brexit won't help.

Seem good to me, did she get any low grades (even in pe?) they look at the overall spread as well as top 5, my dd was told don't bother with imperial because she got a c in French despite have 4 A's at AS level and 8 at a/a*/9/8 at GCSEs.

DD had never been to France either until her year 11 French exchange! We always holiday in Cornwall and Scotland which are a whole different linguistic experience... I think that’s probably why her Arabic has improved more (4 of her 5 close friends speak Arabic as first language, as do most of our neighbours and the owner of the corner shop on our street so she uses it a lot more than French).

I think the school pushes languages (especially more unusual ones) because it has to - so few English first language speakers! They couldn’t exactly ignore the fact that 91% of the school speaks at least two, if not more languages. In DD’s Y7-11 form of 30 there were just two of them who were white British/Irish. Pretty hard to put languages on the back burner!

And anniehm she just did the nine I listed, no graded PE. Four options (Arabic, French, media, art) + 5 core (maths, English x2, science x2). Her “low” grades are her 8s in half of combined science, art and English Language (which she partly puts down to the person next to her leaving the exam midway through, which caused a bit of commotion!). Media and Arabic both weren’t reformed yet. And luckily Imperial wouldn’t be on her radar either - they don’t even offer her courses of interest!

Over the years I have noticed some ‘gaming’ with MFLs by certain schools. Schools, (including private schools) in their published GCSE results and sometimes even A level results include MFLs that are almost certainly taken by native speakers and probably not even taught in school. The odd Polish or Portuguese or Arabic, a higher percentage of Mandarin or Russian top grades relative to other MFLs.

I have numerous friends whose DCs have an advantage in a MFL but regarded it as limiting to do that MFL at A level let alone as a degree. Unless of course they had a strong interest in the literature of that language which is fair enough.

Anyway OP your DD is obviously a talented linguist plus showing that she is enthusiastic and proactive by talking Arabic with her friends.
She should consider the possibility of degrees combining other subjects with her present MFLs including as Bubbles said an ab inito language.

Sendsummer so much of a standard MFL degree is language that even if a native speaker loves the literature of his or her country, it seems exceptionally narrow to go for it. Easier to get in to a good uni though, obviously.

clary the purist in me requires me to post the list of subjects still unreformed in 2018. Certainly not just D&T although admittedly some are more mainstream than others:

Ancient History, Arabic, Astronomy, Bengali, Business, Chinese,
Classical Civilisation, Design and Technology, Economics, Electronics,
Engineering, Film Studies, Geology, Italian, Japanese, Media Studies, Modern Greek, Modern Hebrew, Panjabi, Polish, Psychology, Russian, Sociology, Statistics, Urdu, Biblical Hebrew, Gujarati, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish.

Where the independents sit in that statistic of seven or more 9s in reformed subjects where no more reformed subjects were taken I don't completely know. The overwhelming majority seemed to duck out of the reformed GCSEs to protect their grades/ keep paying parents happy and clung to the safer IGCSEs, so I imagine few actually followed the new specs in seven or more - therefore the statistic of 732 will mostly be state school DC.

Marginally off topic - but just to correct the point about only D&T.

I have looked at the language content for DDs degree. The compulsory language module is 20 credits. It is compulsory for 2 years out of 4. There are many optional units which can up this considerably. No doubt native speakers could choose these, eg translation. There are 80 credits per year needed. DD tended to do art and literature options! Year 4 didn’t have a mandatory language module. Some universities possibly have a higher emphasis on language but the better universities expect broader skills.

my dd was told don't bother with imperial because she got a c in French despite have 4 A's at AS level and 8 at a/a/9/8 at GCSEs.

OT, but I'm curious as to whether she was told that by Imperial themselves - it somehow sounds unlikely to me, given that that there are students gifted in maths and science who are dyslexic and struggle even with English.

No doubt native speakers could choose these, eg translation.
The native speaker would presumably need excellent English for that, so maybe that levels things out a little?

But from the POV of the OPs DD - it's absolutely not my area, this is an outsiders observation - surely if you want to get an excellent education in a language then you're going to end up with a better grasp (especially of accent and idiom) if you're learning it among native speakers? You may not be technically the best in your cohort but surely better than if you're in a class of anglophones?

No Errol I think Bubbles and I are talking about those who are bilingual from birth, with one parent whose mother tongue is the language in question. They have a huge - and yes I think unfair - advantage. They seem to bag a disproportionate (or perhaps proportionate!) number of the highest grades at A2 and degree level, so I do think Bubbles is correct, that there should be some proper levelling. This has definitely deterred DD4 who actually loves languages and seems to be 'gifted' (according to all her teachers since Y7). Very different from the universal language of maths and related subjects.