Easier exams in private schools counted in the same way as harder state school exams

[greentheme23]

I'm shocked by this

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/aug/24/private-schools-igcse-exams-easier-gcse-university-admissions?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Yet another example of money triumphing over talent and hard work!

DD did CIE EngLit iGCSE which is a bit of a weird one I think. No Shakespeare. Teachers apparently put a lot of thought into which syllabus to use.

Boards seem to vary anyway whether GCSE or iGCSE. DDs language iGCSE was apparently quite a lot harder than the one used by the very academic school down the road. Her A level maths also seemed to be a bit of an odd one (OCR MEI) though usefully there were several topics at University which she had already come across, but which others had not. If she were in sixth form now she would be taking pre-U. She would probably get about the same grades and the same University place. Differences will only be on the margins. Some things suit some (coursework, say, or multiple choice) whilst others suit others.

There are far bigger inequalities in education.

titchy I do see that you've already been called out by another poster but please stop putting stuff on these boards which is factually incorrect:

Actually even Ox and most med schools (some do so check!) don't differentiate by GCSE

www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics

It's really bad. It's not fair to get things so fundamentally wrong, especially if you hold yourself out to have expertise.

Sorry goodbyestranger you must have missed the words in brackets - which is weird given you posted them. For clarity I'll paste them here again: SOME DO SO CHECK.

I'm sure you know what the word 'some' means.

And this isn't an Oxbridge or Medicine or grammar thread so I'm not sure what you're doing here. I hope you're not following me around with the aim of undermining me.

What is your opinion on the thread itself - GCSEs vs iGCSEs? Anything?

On Mumsnet the exams OUR DC are doing are always the hardest

The Gove GCSEs are supposed to be the hardest. They still don't appear to be as difficult as O levels were though. I am basing that on nothing more than calculus was on an O level paper and it wasn't, according to ds, mentioned in his GCSE Maths course. I certainly didn't do it for mine (back in 1988).

Well there is calculus on the igcse Maths paper as they do differentiation. Does that make the Maths igcse harder than the gcse? Actually I think one topic is not enough to make that conclusion, particularly since differentiation is not actually that difficult. However as a maths teacher, I would say there is very little to choose between the 2 courses in terms of difficulty.

CIE igcse end lit has a drama paper for which pupils can study Shakespeare or another play. I imagine most British schools choose the Shakespeare, definitely the case for the schools I know.

I suspect that use of IGCSEs will diminish now the GCSEs are reformed - schools I know chose them to avoid the previous GCSEs with coursework , modularity etc , hence the "better prep for A level " comments at the time. Where any of them having more interesting content, in the view of the teaching staff, I guess they will linger eg history that surveys a period rather than randomly darting around.

I find the articles stating that IGCSEs are "easier" as a given odd - none of them stated why they considered that to be the case. Plus IGCSEs have also mostly been recently updated, at the same times as moving to numbers.

Anecdotally it is always hard to tell from own experience - DS did eight GCSEs and three GCSEs and got grade 9s except for two grade 8s, both in IGCSEs. So if he was trying to cheat in the way the posts suggest, it didn't work for him

Hmm, there wasn't calculus in my maths o level - but I seem to remember that there was at neighbouring schools, and it was well known that my school did the 'easy' board! So this debate has a long history!

I think I disagree with the idea of only one exam board though - having heard about 'issues' that arise each year, I think at least this way schools have some control over the process in that they can switch board if there are repeated problems. Would be interesting to know how often schools do decide to change - obviously quite a costly exercise in terms of teacher time, textbooks etc.

There was calculus in my maths O level, but it was optional content. We did it.

IGCSE was chosen for many years because it was considered harder (terminal exams, very few with coursework, less fiddleing with grade boundaries). They've stayed pretty consistent , GCSE has changed. Schools which want a more stable qualification (and can choose) are more likely to stay put. State schools (when it counted on tables) adopted the IGCSE, not because of perceived relative difficulty/ease, but because they were utterly sick of GCSE debacles.

And Xenia is correct - some private schools pick and mix to choose the most challenging (and therefore interesting) syllabus for each subject. That is why the Pre-U caught on for some subjects, rather than A level.

Also, do beware of deceptively simple-looking questions. It can be more challenging when a bland, open question gives no clues/pointers.

This is from the Guardian - hardly vocal supporters of private education!

titchy I don't follow any poster around - what a strange idea! Just no. I'm quoting your post on this thread, so I think that must be legit.

I've actually very deliberately avoided this thread because I've mentioned the thing a couple of times before and been sat down on by the indie set who took massive affront even though (as I said at the time) it's been a topic in the educational press and circles and even politically for at least a year. So I was simply being extremely good :) But if I must: the reformed GCSEs are significantly harder. There's just no argument.

The words in brackets can't, gramatically, relate to Ox, only to other medical schools and by implication those are a few. Of course I didn't miss the bracketed words. Ox couldn't be more specific so I hope you read the info linked to. I mean, they take GCSEs into account not just by scoring them in a broad way but using them in a set mathematical formula. I don't know how much more they could use them in fact!

You say this about GCSEs not counting for any uni admissions (ie non medical courses) elsewhere too (can't recall where or how often) and that isn't correct for certain other unis either (Durham for instance), but I've chosen not to pick you up on it before. I just feel that since you do say that you hold a uni position - and therefore likely to influence - you have a responsibility to get things right. If it's purely a significant grammatical error then you should have spotted that and corrected it, since it says exactly the opposite of what you intended: Ox most certainly does use GCSEs and is very open, very specific and mathematical about it.

Sigh.

Some Ox, some med, some others, use GCSEs. The vast majority don't.

Now seeing as you haven't commented on the topic of the thread it's clear you only posted to correct me. Whether that's you're an altruistic sort of person who wouldn't want anyone to be misled (in which case there are hundreds of active threads you could choose to correct), or whether it's because you're a dick, dressed up with faux niceness, who wants the last word, only you know.

*thats because...

Another grammatical error btw. Woe is me and my short thumbs...

titchy I posted for exactly the reasons I've said. And I've kept off the thread for exactly the reasons I've said. I looked at the thread last night after finishing the washing up because I could see numbers had picked up then saw your post. I think those specifically claiming expertise have a responsibility to get things right and to type in a way which conveys what they mean to say on a particular technical point. I don't think that position carries with it the implication that one is either a dick or falsely nice. I'm going to leave it there before it derails the thread.

If the iGCSEs are so much easier, why don't all schools switch to them? Surly it's not a matter of "money triumphing over talent and hard work" but a case of common sense triumphing and state schools caring more about their league tables than the pupils.

Or maybe the exams are just different.

state schools caring more about their league tables

Of course state schools care about their league tables. If they do IGCSE and their English and Maths pass rate shows as 0% and their progress 8 is fucked, then that’s a pretty big deal for a school.

So you agree they don't give a shit about their pupils.

Ofsted’s view of a school that did this:
“In 2017, a third of Year 11 pupils did not study qualifications considered by the government to be worthy of inclusion in the school’s accountability measures.”

And “The school’s 2017 key stage 4 results are below the government’s floor standard. Leaders made a decision to enter all Year 11 pupils for the iGCSE in English language and literature. This qualification has not provided the level of challenge appropriate for pupils with significantly higher than average prior attainment. As a result of the decision not to enter pupils for the new GCSEs in English language and literature, no pupils in the school achieved the English Baccalaureate in 2017.
 Results in the open element of Progress 8 were in the bottom 20% of all schools in both 2016 and 2017. This indicates that pupils are not gaining qualifications in a wide range of high-quality courses. Indeed, nearly one third of pupils in Year 11 in 2017 did not achieve the open element in the Progress 8 measurement. As a result, leaders are limiting pupils’ potential to achieve well.”

noblegiraffe, If you had been able to step outside of the changes to GCSEs over the past decade and teach a consistent iGCSE syllabus, would you have done so? Because that is what I think private schools have done.

Equally if you could review each syllabus and select which was most suitable for able pupils likely to continue to A level, and which was more suitable for less able pupils whose priority was to master the basics, would that have been useful?

There is advantage in being Independent.

I do not think for a minute that academic private schools are bothered about GCSE grades. They too live and die by results, but these results are Oxbridge/Ivy. Small variations of GCSE grade has relatively little bearing. What pupils need to develop are thinking skills, both for A levels but equally important, for University aptitude tests.

Of course schools would have avoided the utter chaos that was the introduction of the new GCSEs by taking IGCSEs if they could have. That’s why the government removed IGCSEs from the league tables.

State schools can’t simply do what they think is best for their pupils. The government has ways and means to ensure that they do what the government wants them to do.

Our excellent private school has stuck with Igcse English and history.

They believe they are better preperation for A level and seeing their English and History A level results i believe them!

The English lit syllabus is great. The Aqa gcse English sounded like a car crash

It's really bad. It's not fair to get things so fundamentally wrong, especially if you hold yourself out to have expertise.

It's not bad or fundamentally wrong at all. In the context of this thread which was comparing iGCSEs to GCSEs and the bollocks Graund article (nothing to do with Oxbridge or Med or the specialness of certain grammars - your purported areas of expertise, I merely pointed out that the majority of courses at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and all others in the UK do NOT look at GCSEs beyond the basic M and E. That is also true for the majority of medicine (human, animal and oral) courses.

However there are some exceptions, as I said, and potential applicants would be advised to check the open and transparent entry requirements on websites. Which is what I said.

Nobel, thank you. My impression has always been that independent schools teachers are guided by what is best for their pupils and have therefore taken advantage of their ability to stay out of the education-politics frey.

(Obviously there may be schools that are more results focussed but to be honest in very selective London schools GCSE is not seen as a major hurdle, especially if pupils took Common Entrance or scholarship exams at 13 so were well on their way before arriving at the school.)

There are bigger problems in education. I think the iGCSE/GCSE issue is a diversion. If GCSEs stabilised for a few years, and independent schools liked the content, they would start drifting back. Stability is the key.

A bit controversial here but why have different qualifications and exam boards? Surely in terms of qualification equality/fairness it makes most sense to have the same exam?

So schools can pick subject, courses and the sylabus best suited to their cohort and or teachers.So history - does it really matter which period you study? Should It be English? UK? European? World? Irish?

RE usually has choices linked to different faiths, you can't expect a Jewish school to teach exclusively Christianity and visa versa with Christian faith schools.As faith schools usually have RE as compulsory the students might as well take GCSE.