Who else fell foul of English 'downgrading'? Feeling glum.

[rosajam]

My DS did really very well in his GCSE's despite being a July boy

He achieved mostly A*, a couple of A's, a couple of B's and one D - English.

School are querying and were 27%b down in English despite a good year generally. We're gutted. Just hope remark works.

How many universities expect a B?

Did your child suffer?

Firstly I think Uni's are aware of the furore and I wouldn't worry too much - a lot are in the same situation. Did your son pass English Lit? - I think they accept either.
Secondly AS levels are more important in Uni applications than GCSEs. Especially if your son is more inclined to maths or science subjects.

My DD got an A in English Lang (OCR) strangely enough, although she didn't get as many As as predicted in other subjects and Literature was her stronger subject in which she only got an A.

DD2 has just finished year 10. They did English language this year and English lit is next year. Her controlled assessments were B and she too got an unexpected D in her exam. Overall, including her assessments she should achieve a C. The school has said all their results were appalling and they will be doing resits. Was it AQA?

Yes, it was AQA. His marks are one mark from borderline which means they may move them. But his grade is still way down on what we expected. School willl provide resits if all else fails. They are being very lovely and they are very upset for him.

Still feel this is tough - word is they made decision to move boundaries 2 weeks ago. The marking examiners would not have known about it if this is true.

Actually I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but most 'good' universities offering traditional academic degrees will not like the look of a D in English at all - unless perhaps it is a maths degree! When making their offers they tend to stipulate that you have a minimum of a B in English and Maths, to avoid people who have achieved a C by sitting the foundation level.

I would look into this in advance if I were you, as it may be a good idea for him to re-sit GCSE English in conjunction with his AS levels if he definitely wants to apply to any of the more academic unis . Although many schools and colleges will not allow you to take certain A and AS levels unless you have a minimum of a B or a C in English and/or Maths anyway.

To be fair, it is usually for the best, as someone who cannot achieve a C at foundation level will probably not cope with the academic rigours of many subjects beyond GCSE, so there is a good reason they do this, and it is ultimately for the pupil's benefit. However, as they move to adjust grade boundaries across core subjects this should level out a bit - your son is unfortunate that he is in the first cohort to be affected.

Congratulations on the rest of his results though!

My poor DSis failed by 5 marks she's 18 and really needed to pass it to go to uni. She's been working so hard and finally got confirmed help for her dyslexia and memory difficulties this time round.
Thankfully she got an easy pass on another test yesterday....her driving exam!!

Rosa. Do you know what the boundary mark is? I couldn't find it. Does your DSs D include his controlled assessments? If it doesn't, then his grade may increase anyway.

He will have to sit it again I'm sure but I'm upset that the grading seems so unfair.

Actually, you can now get a B on foundation if coursework is good.

He is not doing foundation and capable so hopefully we can turn this around.

My ds got a B but was predicted an A. His older brother got a B two years ago and their work isn't really comaprable.

I am very sorry for those that thought they would get a C and have ended up with a D.

Are Uni's really going to make any allowances though?

Yes, he is clearly capable, but my point was that when universities get their applications they cannot tell whether people with C grades sat foundation level or upper level to get that C, and it is generally accepted that it is easier to get a C at foundation level. Certain subjects at certain unis want to filter out those who sat foundation level in Eglish or Maths as generally they won't be considered to be sharp enough to cope with the course offered, and they only way they can do this is to spipulate a B. Although admittedly I know this from when my son was applying to uni, and he is just going into his second year now. The B at foundation must be a new thing.

I doubt they will to be quite honest. I think the move towards downgrading is as a result of universities complaining for years that they have students turning up with 'excellent' grades who nonetheless are incapable of constructing decent essays, etc.

my DS will be pursuing a Science type degree but I think they will expect a B in English in the competitive uni's. His school were marking coursework thinking this will get a B/A etc and this has been downgraded - drastically so for them. I'm hoping that as his school have been particularly hit that something will be done. Other local schools do not seem to have been so affected

My SS got a D as well. A*/A's in science and math but he's going to resit the English. He's always had major issues with spelling but his content is good so he's in second top set for English at school. We'd expected a C due to the spelling tbh.
At least he can resit - if I understand the current plans that option is going to disappear.

DD got a B in english lit, which she was delighted about because her teacher was marking her practice papers really low. I've just looked at the grade boundaries and she is 5 marks off an A. I can't find a comparison to see if she has been affected by moving the boundaries.

She was two points away from Bs in three other subjects. I can't help thinking it would be fairer to mark subjects with an overall percentage.

Just to clarify a point, even under the new linear exams, resits will be available for maths and English (only) in November each year so that students who miss out on a C in June will still have a chance to get into college etc.

Same as BeingFluffy: DS got an A* in Language which wasn't predicted and an A in Lit, where he's stronger.

There clearly is a problem with down grading and it is not fair to spring this on pupils and schools without warning. AQA have been named and shamed on the BBC and there may be a legal challenge.

English is crucial and many Science leaning pupils have enough ability for English to pursue these degrees and should not be downgraded to make it appear they do not have a generally accepted standard. My son achieved an A* in History and a D in English. History also mark for SPG.

AQA should be brought to book - no school should swing by 27% IN ONE YEAR.

I'd like to hear those who support these ideas as I'd like to write to my M.P and want to hear arguments.

Ofqual has announced an investigation already rosajam.

I've read a few threads on this topics and similar and have been holding off commenting.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a grade for a module (even if the exam board shows a small letter for it). You don't have a grade until the whole qualification is cashed in. Every single UMS point is added together to make up the final result, and only then is the grade awarded.

I think a culture has grown up of students wanting to know what this or that mark means. If they do well on an early module or a CAT, they relax. They aim for just making the grade, asking "what do i need to do for a C?" They don't want to put the effort into going way over the grade boundary. Some schools support this mentality by putting all the teaching/revision/clinic/resit effort into C/D students.

Well, their gamble failed this year.

Students should be encouraged and expected to get the very highest mark they can and forget about grade boundaries. Even if they are predicted an "a" on a module, they should be aiming for as high a mark as possible, because the extra few marks will contribute to their overall score and make up for weaker modules.

I am also very surprised at the reports on Mumsnet of scaling down of CAT marks. Did the teachers not attend training courses? Can they not read mark schemes? It's not rocket science.

But the problem, know isn't pupils doing well on an early module and slacking off later, the problem is an exam board artificially increasing grade boundaries beyond what is normal in order to ensure that more students failed than in previous sittings.

What's also bad is that they excessively increased the grade boundary required for a C grade on the Foundation paper, but not on the Higher paper. It was much harder to get a C in English in June than it was in January but only if you were a lower ability student entered for the Foundation paper.

I was an examiner for AQA English Lang for many years and they were always rigorously fair in their marking with grade boundaries only shifting slightly every year.Every year there was a public outcry against grade inflation and increasing numbers gaining the highest grades.This year this seems to have been addressed and still there are complaints.
I know that the C/D borderline comes under the closest scrutiny possible.
It is always worth asking for a re-mark if there are real concerns.

It's pretty easy to quell that argument by saying that papers are not of equal difficulty.

Grade boundaries change in every exam series. I can look back in my own subject and see massive variations over the 5 years of the qualification. For some exams, a "c" was 12/36 and other times 19/36. That's quite a difference, and something we just took in our stride.

The statisticians will need to get hold of these results to see if there is a significant lowering of results. My gut feel is that there isn't. It would be interesting to know what the overall result would be if the raw boundary was lowered by 1 mark. Probably thousands of students would get a higher mark.

It is interesting that employers have welcomed a tightening of standards.

But the controlled assessment wasn't more difficult, it was exactly the same. How can the grade boundaries change for a piece of work that hasn't changed?

Another thought that I have is that grade inflation over the last 10 years or so is completely justified.

It doesn't not mean that exams are easier, or marking more lenient.

Students and teachers have access to a wealth of information now that just did not exist 10+ years ago. Students can access every past paper, mark scheme and examiner comment about their subject. Teachers can network with other teachers to improve knowledge and resources. If a student wants to read around their subject, they are spoilt rotten with Wikipedia, YouTube and other websites.

This, however, has to level out. And it has - this year.

And its levelling out just happened to coincide with an excessive rise in the C/D grade boundary and an education secretary who has spent ages banging on about how exam passes should fall?

How incredibly convenient.

I don't know enough about the grade boundaries for your CAT/subject.

For mine, there is generic marking criteria which won't change from year to year. Looking at the UMS we received on our our CATs, it looks like a linear scale up from raw to UMS, ie no bell curve.

We can only submit CAT marks for June, so there are no January and June grade boundaries.

I have only this year's experience of the new CAT system and I find it very transparent. We were very pleased relieved with our results considering the amount of curriculum time the CAT took.

One of the things I learned from the new CAT process is that it is very important for all teaching staff to attend training. For my awarding body, this was a free course, and definitely worth then travel cost.