Early entry for GCSE = worse results, statistics show.

[noblegiraffe]

I know quite a few posters here have expressed concerns about their DC's schools entering students early for GCSE exams, and it turns out rightly so. Students entered early for Maths or English GCSEs do worse than those entered at the end of Y11 even when you take resits into account.

(note: early entry is not the same as taking modules in Y10, it is completing the entire GCSE before the end of Y11)

The DFE has just published a report analysing the statistics and found 'The statistical evidence so far indicates that for lower achieving pupils, there is little discernable benefit in early entry other than increasing opportunities to retake before the end of KS4 which still does not improve the overall comparative result. For pupils who achieve level 4 or above at KS2 (and would therefore be expected to achieve grade A*-C at GCSE) the average final grade is lower for early entrants. Higher attaining pupils are therefore being disadvantaged by entering early and not achieving their full potential.'

My son's school sits some pupils for maths gcse in yr9.
He is doing pretty well in maths,but I wouldn't imagine he would achieve an a or b in yr9.

What I would like to know is,do the school keep you fully informed if they are planning to enter your child early?
Also,do they easily accept it if you tell them you don't want this to happen?

It seems to me that this,in the main,benefits the school and not the child.

Ramblinrose - DDs school have kept us fully informed, parentmail, year group evenings and exam timetables on website.

But anything they have done so far that has affected DD have been across the whole year group. Which means tryiing to pull one child out would be pointless, unless enough parents felt strongly enough.

For previous years, top set maths have done statistics in yr10, with the actual maths in yr11. I think that's quite a good idea, as it's an extra GCSE if they get it and they still have the opportunity to get their best maths grade in year 11. And they don't get a year of doing no maths at all or an AS early.
Unfortunately they have stopped this from current year 10s. What we have been told so far is that all EXCEPT top sets take maths in the November of yr11 to give them two attempts. Top sets take it in May of yr11.
Perhaps something to do with needing am A Grade to take A level?

My DS got a grade B in maths at the end of year 10 but they have all been told that they have to resit next March or so to achieve better grades, they had the chance to sit it because it was available to them, they could bank the grade they got if it was good enough, the teachers have assessed the grades and told those students who can get a better grade to resit and try again, they said well done to them but that they could do better with more tuition. It gave them a chance to sit an exam and see what it was like. My DS was 1 mark of an A grade so he said himself that he was going to have another go and he was pleased that he could resit it.

The teaching staff should know if your child is able to sit GCSE's early. My DS's school work with everyone to make sure that this is the case and as far as SATS go, they totally ignore them and do their own tests the second week that year 7 start, which include logical thinking, spacial awareness, all round leaning ability and knowledge - they are not limited to science, maths and English. The children do not get to know their scores in any of the tests but a parent can ask to be told. My DS was in the top 3% of his year group at the start of year 7 and he therefore is in the highest stream possible now he is in year 11 and is set to achieve A* to B grades in the higher papers. Works well at our school.

Resits cost money, you can sit an exam and see what it is like without taking the actual GCSE.

I'm wondering why parents are happy to fork out for resits when 'they could have done better with more tuition' is obvious.

My DCs school have a no early entry for GCSEs policy unless there are exceptional circumstances eg language gcses for bilingual children. Taking a GCSE early and then having to resit just wastes so much time that could be spent actually being taught or working on understanding the material at a higher level.

DS is in year 10 and will take some GCSE papers in the summer such as science and an RE paper but he'll also have school exams in everything else. He is a high achiever and will get the best chance of good results by leaving as much as possible till the summer of year 11.

At DD1's school the whole cohort do all their GCSEs in Y10.

What do they do in year 11? Start the A level courses?

Unless it's a selective school and they all get top grades, that sounds insane.

Universities only take the final GCSE grades into consideration, resits are irrelevant at this level, though as most people have said here it is surely more productive to do an exam well once than re-revise and resit it a number of times! Resits become problematic at A Level, as (save for those students taking gap years) it is the AS Level results that conditional offers are based on. Getting an A/A* overall makes no difference if an initial E/D/C/B dissuades a university from even considering a student. Do it well the first time, even if that means preparing for longer.

noblegiraffe It is. Most of them do. There seems to be so little work involved in Y7-8 even accelerating them a year in that period. Acanthus Yes, they have a 3 year sixth form.

thetasigmamum do they do more A levels as standard then? It seems a bit odd that bright kids would take a year longer over A levels than everyone else to me, unless they all do 5 or 6.

I think it's appalling practice to get children to take high stakes examinations "out of year". It skews comparisons between candidates and creates situations where pupils don't study key subjects like Maths, English or French, for a whole year, and therefore forget skills.

noblegiraffe they don't all get A* in all subjects if that's what you mean. They now do four A2's as standard and the EPQ, having done GS and Critical Thinking AS's in Y11.

At my daughter's school the only GCSE's that are taken early are ICT and D&T. They are taken at the end of year 10. The school does this so it frees up timetable time for other subjects in year 11 and because the school found that these subjects tended to be the ones that the children put on the back burner whilst concentrating on the more challenging subjects.
(My daughter got B's in both subjects)

Bonsoir what is appalling is that there is so little content in KS3 that it's perfectly possible for kids to complete it in 2/3 of the time officially allocated, while having very little homework and doing huge amounts of extra curricular stuff.

It's not that GCSEs are easy. It's that KS3 is easy. It's padded out with non academic subjects like DT and IT but in the academic subjects (eg maths, French, History) they are required to cover far less ground in 3 years than we had to cover when I was at school. That's where the problem lies.

At DD1s school all GCSE courses take 2 years (and certainly some of the musicians have already done Grade 5 theory before they start Y9). I would not be wild about even the brightest of kids doing a GCSE in one year (although that is sort of what happens at DS's school, with French, and I'm hugely not impressed with that). Doing KS3 at a sensible instead of funereal pace is a completely different issue.

I meant to add that DD1 is doing an English controlled assessment today. She didn't seem concerned bout it this morning. I'm certainly less concerned about that than I am about her piano exam in a week's time (which is higher stakes).

Tsmum - is it a state school bound by some NC restrictions? I get the impression that selective independents stick more content into yrs 7-9 than they have to, but maybe I'm wrong?

I don't know anything about independent schools. DD1s school is a state grammar school. They have to follow the National Curriculum. But obviously they are not compelled to drag KS3 out for 3 years

The GCSE examination syllabus is not the KS3 curriculum, however. I think that schools/teachers/pupils/parents labour under the misunderstanding that the two are the same.

Yes that's what I mean. Independent schools seem to cover a wider syllabus than the NC requires, I think.

Hence the widespread belief that independent schools are less culpable than state of "teaching to the test".

Completely agree with what noblegiraffe said. Spot on. It happened with my son with Eng Lit. He got a B - should have been capable of at least an A, and with another year of teaching I think he would have got at least an A. We were told that he would be given the opportunity to resit it if we were not happy with the result, but it turned out there were only two of them who wanted to resit, and they were told they would have to do it in their own time after school as they could not timetable a proper lesson for just two of them. I was not happy AT ALL.

And this was in an independent school.

The other thing I will say is there is a great deal of pressure on children who are borderline B/C grade maths to take foundation level in maths as it is much easier and less risky to bank a C grade at foundation, than to aim for a B at higher level and only get a C anyway. That's fine if they don't need a B, to coninue in their higher/further ed choice, but many will find that when it comes to university some insist on a minimum of B in maths, even if it is not a maths related degree. They do not want people who may have been foundation level students, but who have an overall level of capability. Thinking that you don't 'need' maths so it won't matter is not necessaily true, but you won't find this out until it is too late.