OCR?? Edexcel?? AQA??

[spendy]

Hi again everyone ... sorry, but I've got yet another question.

I have been trying all night to get my head around OCR, Edexcel and AQA. Can someone (pref in laymans terms ;)) please explain this to me? Is one more recognised, is one more basic? There are such conflicting opinions on the net.

Also, how / when should I find out if my son is doing foundation or advanced? Am I right in thinking it's the equivalent of Basic and General (like when I did my O'Levels?).

Thanks again :)

They're just the names of the exam boards. Edexcel used to be the London University board. OCR - I think the O stands for Oxford and the C for Cambridge. AQA - used to be the Associated Board? I'm sure it's all there if you google.

They're all supposed to be equivalent but I believe teachers do pick and choose syllabuses to suit the abilities of their students, not just to get a slightly different selection of topics.

The school should tell you about foundation, advanced etc. I think choices like that will be based on how he does in tests in year 8/9.

They are different exam boards - essentially, different companies offering the same product (i.e. GCSEs). Different subjects within the same school can choose to go with the exam board they prefer, which may be due to content, course structure, assessment or results.

For most exams, there will he an opportunity for pupils to be submitted for either the Higher of Foundation paper, depending on the pupil/ teacher. The Higher paper will give grades of A* - C and generally covers the more advanced principles of each topic, whereas the Foundation paper gives grades of C - F, covers the basic principles and generally provides more scaffolding/ support.

Depending on the subject/teacher, your son may follow a certain course from the beginning of Year 10 - i.e. A top set with A/A* Target grades will be covering the Higher content, or it may not be decided until midway through Year 11 - more likely with, for example, a C/D borderline class.

Hope that helps!

DD1's school do English, History and I think French OCR as they thought they were harder and more "prestigious". DD2' school apparently changed to Edexcel for science to try and get higher grades, but received a shock when they suddenly got a lot harder!

TBH I don't think there is much difference between them. When I was at school AEB and London were considered the difficult boards and Oxford & Cambridge was considered "mickey mouse". I think they are largely picked on what suits the individual department and teachers.

A college/6th Form/employer doesn't ask for what exam board for the GCSE/AS/A2, just what the grade was.

When looking at the different boards, I go through the specification as although they are all deemed to be the same, different boards have different specifications and whilst some suit my students, other not so much. I also take into account the support offered by the boards for my subjects and the pass rates.

Hi Spendy. There is no need to get so worried! there is not a great deal of difference between these three exam boards; all offer the Foundation tier ( maximum grade C) and Higher tier (up to A*) and cover the assessment objectived required for the subject. No employer will differentiate between boards.

Echoing the posters above, exam boards matter little for practical purposes. So little in fact that you DO NOT need to worry at all about it affecting his chances of employment or further education, apart from making sure DS is studying from the correct revision guide (even then there is little difference at GCSE, far more at A-level. Even so many GCSE & A level textbooks such as the CGP revision guides carry all exam boards' syllabi with each page/chapter marked out as being necessary for particular boards.)

Foundation/Higher is in general decided in year 10 for core subjects, eg top set after year 9 would be certainly expected to do Higher and the sets struggling to reach level 5 by end of key stage would be definite for Foundation Tier, where they would have better prospects of achieving the C grade that the school and most other people who matter post-16 would be looking for. Some schools having a set of pupils on borderline between the two where the decision is made some way through the year. For optional subjects with only a single class due to numbers, it can be decided much later based on past papers and teacher assessment.