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?

I don't think many 'posh boys' at private schools sit Foundation Tier English and thus they will have been relatively unaffected by the AQA debacle.

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?

Kez, because that's what exam boards do, set exams and grade them. They are supposed to be experts in it. If people have sat the GCSE in January then they should get their results in March, exam boards can't fanny around saying 'we need to see how the June lot get on first'. AQA is one of the largest exam boards, and if they can't get grade boundaries right on a popular subject because it was 'quite a small cohort', then how on earth would they cope with setting grade boundaries on a subject that always has a small cohort, like GCSE Russian or Textiles?

Of course I am not blinkered about how pupils at elite schools will generally get better grades than people at sink estate secondary moderns, but that is due to all sorts of complicated factors that will always be present, and always have been. It makes no real difference to the attainment of an average or below average ability pupil at an average or below average attaining school, whether people at Eton are getting 12 A* or merely 12 As, and frankly anyone with enough family money and connections to be at Eton probably doesn't need to worry too much about whether they get five A to C grades at GCSE at all, do they?

The point is that to have inflated grades year on year to a point where it is possible for someone of lacklustre, unremarkable ability to appear on paper to be equally as capable as someone of higher, or even exceptional ability is a nonsense that has had disasterous consequences both in higher education and in the workplace, and it needs addressing.

It has bugger all to do with 'posh boys looking after posh boys' unless of course you have a deep-seated suspicion that 'posh boys' are more likely to have superior intelligence and capability. And of course in many sections of society the words 'posh' and 'clever' and do seem to be interchangeable, and considered one and the same. Which is part of the problem, isn't it? It's one of expectation, and the 'not for the likes of us' mentality.

A relatively unintelligent private schooler won't achieve straight As rosa*, however spoonfed he is and however large his parents' income and however massive his house. Those who happen to have parents in the top 2% income wise are statistically unlikely to ever get near the top 2% in terms of results.

Take MCSs results (on the school website). How many achieved 11 A*s? (and these are very, very bright boys, not simply monied).

Noble, I didn't explain myself properly.

First the small cohort - the subjects you mention always have small cohorts so an error in January wouldn't be extrapolated 20x in the following June on a core subject.

Also, exam boards offer January entry but this was such a new concept - the long CA assessments at 60%, they were playing - on this one occasion with fire - if they knew Gove was going to put them under pressure to only allow a certain number to pass. If they knew though, is a moot point. If they didn't they should have stood allowed everyone producing C Grade work to pass - even if it meant a high pass rate. Indeed, C grade work is exactly that. If introducing CAs have allowed coursework to be effectively monitored and children are doing great stuff, then they should be credited for it.

I hope there is a real challenge over this to work out who actually did what but it all seems to be nothing to do with the students standard of work.

Well from DS's school it is not just foundation tier who are affected, and if you want to go to a good Uni and study English having a C for English Language might look odd, even if you have A/A* for Eng Lit.

MAGENTADREAMER - Yes - that is exactly the situation. Assuming you are not an English teacher (and apologies for being patronising) you seem to be one of the only non-specialists to actually get the point.

Domino the papers are explaining it very clearly, precisely for the benefit of non-specialists.

But in terms of grades, the grades at the upper end have actually been most affected - though of course the impact of a fail as opposed to a pass at C/D may well be severe.

I'm sure that it's unarguable that each and every student, right through the spectrum, should get what they deserve - the upper end has an equal right to fair treatment; their futures may be affected too.

A relatively unintelligent private schooler won't achieve straight A*s rosa, however spoonfed he is and however large his parents' income and however massive his house. Those who happen to have parents in the top 2% income wise are statistically unlikely to ever get near the top 2% in terms of results.

I'm clearly not saying this - I was discussing the general trend which actually should not be up for argument.

Back to grade downflation - if grade boundaries need to change by those that oversee, they surely cannot do it mid-academic year within same examination type - it smacks of unfairness; Summer 2012 pupils will be disadvantaged for future job/school/uni applications. We'll have to see whether Ofqal agree and whether there is enough outrage to rectify this Summer's grades. It's anyone's guess what they will do.

What do you think Ofqal/AQA will do?

rosa what you said in terms was that 'Actually, your top grades are available to purchase'. It's all well and good having a social conscience but that doesn't carry with it the need to insult hard-working clever students who happen to be well off. Top grades are not available to purchase.

Dear Yellowtip,

point taken but it is not about running down all pupils that do well, effort and hard work are part of that but it is recognising that certain circumstances allow some to flourish and develop and others are stunted.

This govt. don't appear to care about the ordinary , average pupil and many of us do and want them to not be seen as failures.

Ok, point taken too, but since the top end grades are even more savagely slashed, that doesn't quite fit the theory that this is targeted at ordinary, average pupil - it's affected pupils across the board.

We'll have to see what comes out of an inquiry , I think all grades have been affected and it is really tricky for the potential An pupil to have a B when they will be up against gap year pupils who did get an A the year before.

I just wonder what AQA will do and I hope they will remark.

I hope they don't remark but revise boundries more fairly and re-issue new grades automatically - much quicker and cheaper and, from the evidence we have, far more likely to be the cause of the problem than marking.

All grades are important - A* to A/B can affect top Uni entry, B to C cause a student to not choose English as an A level subject, C to D is obviously a really critical change and, quite probably, affects the largest number of students. D to E and lower grades affect those students to in their own individual ways. If there is found to be a problem all students in this cohort should be regraded under new, fairer, boundries based on production of C Grade work not purely based on being in the top x% of the cohort.

I think it's quite clear that AQA manipulated the grade boundaries by an unusual amount at the C/D borderline between Jan and June.

I'm a bit unclear of the argument that A/A grades were also artificially depressed - I know that A/A results went down, but what's the argument that this was unreasonable?

The other issue in this is, of course, schools near the Government's new floor target of 40% A to C including Maths and English*. The agenda being to ensure that as many of these schools as possible are turned into academies.

Someone I know well, a relatively new head at one of these schools, has achieved a HUGE (double digits) increase in the relevant measure in a single year in the face of all kinds of obstacles, in one of the most deprived constituencies and challenging schools in the country. The school has fallen short of the magic measure by a fraction of 1%, and my understanding is that the English GCSE issue has played a part in this. As a result, the school will almost certainly be forced into academy status within the next term, the head will be sacked and will almost certainly never be employed as a head again.

You can say that it is right that such schools are given 'new starts' as academies - but in this case, a new management team is already in place, they have shown huge improvements and have the capacity to make more. The political pressure on the C-D boundary in one of the key subjects (maths, of course, is much more difficult to fudge after the paper has been set), however, treats that as irrelevant so that it can ease the progress of the juggernaut which is academisation and the destruction of LEAs.... along with the destruction of the careers of some very able headteachers....

I was led to believe there was a big change at A to A as well (from a independant school press release I read yesterday - can't remember school name now! Grrr). Hardly perfect evidence I know, but two of my daughters friends expecting A/A and managing A/A* in every other subject including literature, both scored high B in language.

Noble, if there has been no wide boundry changes on the other grades then, I agree, that doesn't matter.

Can anyone tell me, is this excluusive to the GCSEs or does it affect AS and A2s as well ?

maths, of course, is much more difficult to fudge after the paper has been set

There have been rumblings about grade boundaries in the maths section of TES too. I think there was an OCR Higher paper where you needed 56% to get a C, but only 50% of the paper is C grade or below. Students have also done better on linear papers where the grade boundaries have been much lower than on modular papers. However, this June has been the first sitting for the new maths syllabus rather than the second as it is for English so we can't compare back and say that the boards have fiddled things to increase the failure rate this June.

The Telegraph has a graphic showing the change in all grades for the main subjects between last year and this. I understood grade boundaries to have shifted significantly in several subjects but that English was the most seriously affected and that this mishandling of the CA had been identified and come to the fore. There's less noise about other subjects because English seems to be the most extreme as well as having a flaw to point to. But I nevertheless thought there was serious disquiet about the shift in boundaries elsewhere.

I feel a little anxious after hearing BBC news report:

Ofqal are quoted as saying they will learn the lessons from this anger about the English GCSE.

AQA say they will be delighted to be vigourously scrutinised to prove they have marked fairly.

How do you interpret this?

My hunch is that Ofqal will advise more gradual changes in the future but believe it is politically and logistically difficult to change what is done.

AQA can't admit incompetence - but will they turn around some borderline cases to keep schools registered with them. They are likely to lose many schools after this unless they adjust - could almost close their English dept. I imagine/wonder.

It does not sound like anyone is ready to move boundaries for already marked exams.

Certainly very vague.

"AQA say they will be delighted to be vigourously scrutinised to prove they have marked fairly"

Although this bit is as I said before - I suspect there is no issue with marking - its the grade boundries and awarding that are at issue here.

It will be interesting, if OFQUAL do hope it goes away with vague statements about learning lessons, what HTs do - I think they are rightly very angry - for the students and, secondary, for their HT colleagues and their staff members working in schools which will now fall under the 'failing' radar.

Is a legal challenge possible?

What would happen if they demanded a complete re-mark for every AQA script (can HTs actually even do this without getting the students agreement to each one they send for remark?)

Yellowtip - yes boundries have changed in other subjects. My daughter was 2% off a C in History in 2011. The same score would have given her a C the year before and the year before that (we didn't look back any further). She redid it this year, improved her score, but still got a D! Again boundries went up!

Very annoying for the school as that would have given her the English Bacc but she is quite resigned on the basis she was clearly a borderline student and if she was really better she would have nailed a C.

We also suspect Drama productions were marked harshly this year but she got a C (and was a B/C borderline) so was happy with her result but she has friends who she says are superb and not one managed higher than a B overall even though they had really excellent CA scores going into the final production exam.

Science, RE and languages, however, seem fine and quite consistent - at least on her exam boards.

It looks like the problem here is one of statistics.

A small cohort of students had work submitted in January, and this sample was UMS'd.

A far cohort submitted work in June, and this was UMS'd separately from the January cohort. Because it was a much larger sample, the statistics are more robust - there is more data to feed into the grade boundaries.

An easy solution is to only submit CATs in June (which is standard for lots of subjects)