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?

It's not just the Education Secretary who has expressed concerns. Higher education staff and employers have said likewise.

I don't believe students sit back and put less effort into later modules. They use the marks given as an indicator as to how they are doing and if they are working to the level they are expected to reach.

Some students will know they are working as hard as they are able and will strive to keep up that effort. Others will know they can do better and put that effort in, in the hope of pushing up the grade boundaries. Then there are the students who don't put the effort in and will drop expected grades regardless of the information they have been given.

Please don't insult students by saying they relax in later modules and aim for a C.

Some dcs work very very hard just to get that C grade and it seems that these are the students who have come foul to this situation. Just because a child is aiming for a C, does not mean they are working any less than a bright child aiming for the A*.

know if you submitted your controlled assessment in January and got 43 marks it converted to a C grade UMS score. To get the same C grade UMS score if you submitted your controlled assessment in June, you had to get 46 marks. For the same controlled assessment.

How can you justify that?

know but it is the education secretary who is saying that he had no influence over the exam board taking this possibly illegal course of action to reduce student passes.

Do you really think all students do their very best?

some do, many don't

We can only submit in June. What board and subject are we talking about.

What is the advantage of submitting in January?

Your students are less mature and you are unlikely to want to exercise the 60% rule.

Oh FFS know you wade into a thread about English downgrading saying you've read threads and throw your tuppence-worth in and you don't even know what people are complaining about?

AQA English. Read the news. The inquiry. The legal challenges? Then come back and say it's down to kids slacking off.

Sorry. I've hit a nerve. I will bow out now and leave you to get on with it.

What noblegiraffe said...

Why should a reasonable standard in English be deemed as a fail. The problem is distinguishing at the top and that is where steps could be taken to reward the exemplary. Failing lots of pupils as they did with O'levels is not actually where teaching and parenting is at. Positive encouragement is important and standardsa re improving as is teaching - maybe at the top there are a few not reaching giddy heights but for the majority standards are improving slightly.

Anyway, this year, teachers have been given indications by AQA where grade boundaries lie, they have marked Controlled assessments to this guidance and then it was changed - they have down marked their pupils when they were adjusting to numbers when they had always awarded grades for years. It affects teachers ability to make professional judgements.

I do think there would not be such an outcry unless something had gone quite seriously wrong.

I know all students don't do their best. My DD was amongt them in year 10.

What I said was students don't use grade boundaries as an excuse to slack off. If the are going to slack off they will do it either way. Most students will look at grade boundaries only to see that they are on track.

know I truly hope you do not teach in my DSs school. What an appalling attitude you have. I can assure you he will have to work very hard to achieve a C in English GCSE. To think some Tory know all can come along and all of a sudden the goal posts have been switched, makes me sick to my stomach.

There has to be an outcry - and sustained because Tory boy Gove is only supporting the elite ( posh boys at top want to look after posh boys and will support Gove) and the world is made up of a huge variety who need rewarding for their standards.

Teachers are improving standards - slowly but surely.

Not so sure rosa. Wycombe Abbey and Magdalen College School are both publicly pretty upset.

DS English results are being reviewed by the school & I suppose the likelihood will be a re-mark? I hope they deal with this matter promptly & sensibly because it casts doubt on all pupils English results.
My son gained a B when he was predicted A/A*. He's upset at the grade as he worked so hard, plus he has dyslexia which makes English so much harder. DD is taking sciences & Maths at 6th form & so the English result isn't the end of the world, but it's an uncomfortable result at present.

Not all competetive Unis want a B, eg. Oxbridge! If a child is dyslexic they will often take this into consideration (personal email from Imperial).
Overall it depends on the Ofqual investigation. However if that brings my DS's D up to a C, whilst taking the pressure off him, it is a joke that his English ability is judge with the same grade I got back in the dark ages at O'level.

God forbid any student should fail.
Time this nonsense grading changed

rosajam what on EARTH is that 'posh boys at the top' comment supposed to mean?

Do you seriously think this is about punishing or stigmatising pupils who are not socially or academically elite? Or are you saying that only pupils who are socially elite are capable of being academically elite? Because it's pretty hard to read it any other way.

But Oxbridge is a bit of an anomoly - they have their own set of selection criteria which is often nothing to do with actual results at all, and although almost eveyone who bothers to apply to Oxbridge is of A* calibre across the board, they are often made unconditional offers, and some will not have even sat formal exams at all because of some 'quirky' lifestyle. I don't think you can use Oxbridge as a barometer for what most competitive unis require.

Having read some of the rubbish my DPs students (Uni) write I'm not surprised that finally the marks are going down.

I don't see remarks being of any use. There isn't an issue with marking.

Basically Gove wanted grade deflation. Everyone who doesn't live under a rock new that, so the exam boards certainly did - even if they were not told directly.

They made the mistake of taking a January entry and marking it and giving grade boundries. I suspect it was quite a small cohort and they didn't realise the possible ramifications. Basing statistics on a small number of entrants under a new syllabus was completely daft - I don't know why on earth they did it? Boundries should only have been first decided once a full year had been through. Anyway, they didn't.

June cohort come along and have done much better and there is a lot of them! Exam boards had to choose - rack up grade boundries or have more students pass and incur the wrath of Gove. They appear to have chosen the former.

As far as I can see, it's likely to be that simple. No remarks, just do boundries need changing - and not, necessarily, just the C grades!

My point is grade deflation argument is to do with uni's and employers being able to distinguish between the best at the top of the grade scale.

Please do not be blinkered about grades - depending on your social circumstances more often than not indicates your final grade. Or are you telling me that the teachers are so much better in some schools in nice areas compared to inner -city schools with lower results? It is ridiculous to assume that.

Some people exceed expectation of course but the general results reflect family/social circumstances.

Hitting the C grade pupils - although I don't think that is correct all grades have come down - but the C borderline for an average pupil should indicate an acceptable standard has been reached, to return to an O'level standard, with no warning is failing lots of pupils who should not feel failures. O'levels with their ridiculously low pass rate did just that!

Remarks unless a DC is very close to the threshold for the next grade up are not going to help, it's the grade boundaries that are causing the out cry and mainly the one's for the CA's. Rightly so Teachers are outraged. From what I can gather a task that Student 1 took and was cashed in in Jan would get a C grade. Student 2 taking the same task and getting the same marks would get a D grade if cashed in in June. I reaslise that exam papers can fluctuate as in some can be hard and so very easy so grade boundaries for exams can change. But if I have got this right surely if 10 CA tasks are given to a school in September for the coming year they should have the same UMS value when ever they are cashed in.

I might be completely wrong but that is how this whole sorry situation comes across to me.

My DD is a C/D borderline Student, I am extremely greatful that her English department didn't cash in her CA's this time around as DD would have been well and truely stuffed and be repeating the whole of them again in yr11. This was the first year that Yr10's haven't completed a full English Lang GCSE.

I suspect political meddling and Gove's desire for more Academies as it's a tad bizarre that the threshold for schools deemed to be doing ok is now 40% 5 A-C including Maths and English and suddenly English results take a bit of a nose dive with the C/D borderline students being hit the most.

rosa that stuff about family circumstance is ridiculously black and white and as a result pretty absurd. Top grades aren't available for purchase.

magneta I thought the A grades had dropped twice as much as the C grades (0.8% decline as opposed to 0.4% decline).

Actually, your top grades are available to purchase. Why is there so much talk about raising standards for under-privileged? Did I just think this up? Plenty of hard evidence to back it up. Actually, that is why many buy an education.