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?

Think DS fell foul
He got a B C D for his various modules in english language, with a C overall. He didnt have any Ds before the exam and the B was 72% which looking at the origianal grade boundaries was an A which i linked to on a thread i started a few days ago. He was targeted an A but that was always going to be in doubt because he has dyslexic problems.
English lit he resat a paper he got a C on and got an A* and think the other modules were a B and a C with a B overall.

@yellowtip not quite sure what you mean by rigorous subjects and 'softer options'?

noble there's only a single Maths, not Applied and Methods. Perhaps this is the first year of the Double Award.

Mordion I was trying to avoid getting pilloried, but I was looking at the stats for Hospitality, Prep. for Life, Home Economics, Media etc. The trend is the opposite way.

Yellow,

I suspect that the English and Maths ones have been particularly manipulated hit this year because of their importance in judging schools - and then forcing them to become academies.

The 'ripple' effect may then have gone out as far as other 'traditional' subjects to make them look 'in line' (and because the numbers taking them, a reduction in passes in these subjects will have the desired a greater effect on the overall politically important pass rate).

I suspect that the other subjects, taken by smaller numbers of pupils, will follow suit over the next couple of years but weren't manipulated to the same degree this year because the aim of lowering the overall A*-C rate could be achieved through the larger subjects alone.

That makes absolute sense teacher. Except that it's pretty gauche in terms of covering tracks. Seems very amateur to me.

yelllow the double award for maths is a pilot scheme that only a small number of schools are taking part in. It was supposed to finish this year but the pilot has been extended. Rumours are that it'll never be adopted as Labour started it, although Carol Vorderman insisted that a double maths gcse was the way forward in her Gove-commissioned maths report. Suspicions are that Gove has his own ideas about the future of maths gcse.

The only GCSE subjects that were supposed to get tougher this year were science - and then only the new spec (mostly sat by year 10s), not the legacy ones. This was is response to a study that showed they had got too easy the last time the syllabus changed. Other subjects (English, maths geog + some others are scheduled to become tougher with new syllabuses over the next few years).

All the GCSE subjects were supposed to move to 'comparable outcomes' this time, which happened to A levels last year and was supposed to stop but not reverse grade inflation. It allegedly corrects for the fact that the longer a syllabus has been out the easier it is to get higher grades as the teaching gets better, more past papers etc. but is supposed to mean that this years cohort is neither advantaged or disadvantaged compared to last.

It seems to me that in English they have overdone it a bit. Dd fell foul, missing grade boundary (and her target) by 2/300 and the CAs (actually done in year 10) would have scored higher if submitted in Jan. I do feel a bit annoyed on her behalf, although I also accept that if you are that close to the boundary you will always risk falling the wrong side. It will only be a problem for her if she decides she wants to apply for medicine as far as I can tell though.

Both English and Maths (and ICT) had the first sitting of a new syllabus this year. I don't know about the English syllabus, but the Maths one was tougher, with more unstructured questions and a functional maths element with Quality of Written Communication being assessed (which is why maths teachers were confused when it was announced that maths needed to be made tougher from Nov 2012, which I think has now been pushed back into 2013).

So, tbh, I expected maths results to fall this summer due to the new syllabus. But there does seem to have been some bizarre inconsistencies between exam boards and even between linear and modular courses in how grade boundaries have been set. And then there's the OCR situation of needing to produce better than C grade work in order to get a C grade in its final module. I don't think exam boards know what they're supposed to have been doing. Perhaps there was confusion between exam boards about 'comparable outcomes' when it's a brand new syllabus which wasn't supposed to be comparable. Perhaps there was the understanding that exam results weren't supposed to fall much due to a Labour set of exams and some exam boards were holding off until the new Tory tougher exams next year.

What's really annoying is that neither teachers nor students know what they're supposed to be working towards. How can kids plan for college or A-level if the rug can be pulled from under them at the last minute without warning?

"How can kids plan for college or A-level if the rug can be pulled from under them at the last minute without warning? "

And how can heads plan for their school's future if they can slip dramatically below the 'floor target' with a stroke of the examiner's pen?

Been in touch with the head I wrote about upthread. Apparently the English marking has made between 4 and 8% difference in his '5 good GCSE' percentage (which has anyway gone up well over 10% in the one year he has been in charge - would be nearer 20% improvement in a single year without the marking problem).

Simply through that issue, he has been kept a very politically important fraction of a percent below the magic 40 figure, and fully expects the school to be forced to start the process to become an academy (and him to be sacked as part of that process) in the first weeks of next term.

True, teacher. My school is usually well above the floor target so I keep forgetting about that bit. We are, however, Outstanding and due an Ofsted so this may well scupper our chances of keeping the coveted status (not that Gove will care as he has already forced us into academy conversion by cutting our budget by 100k).

although maths and english were new syllabuses, I thought 'comparable outcomes' was still supposed to be applied. I know it's hard to know what to compare with, but the idea is that similarly abled pupils would score the same on either syllabus. For maths the modular course seemed a lot harder than last years whereas the linear one wasn't which is bizarrely unfair too. In some schools where lower sets took linear and higher ones modular the lower sets outperformed the higher in many cases apparently.

English does have a new syllabus, that's true, but the disputed unit of the exam is the least changed section. The new syllabus paper is a lot longer and students have to do a lot more, but it is essentially the same as the old paper one with the writing section of paper two tacked on as well. Certainly the skills being tested and the format of doing so is largely unchanged. Teachers were assured that the new syllabus would be comparable - that is, students who demonstrated the required skill level to get a 'C' grade on the old system would get one on the new. That manifestly is not the case. The mark schemes for the previous June, January, and this June are almost identical in terms of the skills descriptors leading to a raw mark. So how can they justify students needing to do 9 marks better to get the same grade as last year?

I'm an English teacher and what has happened is that the C grade boundary last year was 143; this year it is 163. The outcomes aren't comparable. I "know" a C when I see it - I have taught English for years and specialise in the C/D boundary - and I got Ds, with a smattering of Cs, where I predicted Ds, with a smattering of Cs.

It's a straightforward attempt to stop the Daily Mail etc banging on about grade inflation. I don't know if it is otherwise politically motivated (eg to promote the O level agenda). I do know it has messed up the prospects and fragile self esteem of some really good, hard-working kids.

oops! I meant I predicted Cs, with a smattering of Ds.

I should add that colleagues of mine and friends from other schools all experienced a similar shift. And that it hasn't done wonders for my self esteem either!

balia and sleepysand - absolutely agree. I'm an English teacher and have a son with lots of high grades who achieved a D in English. Am hopping mad! Have written to my MP.

It is just wrong for pupils and teachers to have this thrust upon them with no warning. I also thought Science results were expected to be affected next Summer and English a few years afterwards.

Pupils and teachers need to be aware and take on new exam challenges not sit papers in the dark.

What will be done? Please write to your MP's as Leeds Education suggested on BBC

I know I am not saying anything new but just have to say something somewhere- ds did not drop a mark on his two English Lang coursework modules and gained A*'s yet was graded b on his written English lang paper he took this summer -he has an A -we shouldn't moan I know but we are really shocked and I didn't think I could react like this to GCSE's. It is just he has work so very hard-don't know what else to say.

Yes absolutely - the more pressure the better.

And sleepysand I know exactly what you mean about knowing a 'C' - so now what am I supposed to say to the new year 10 and 11's and their parents. 'Hi, your son/daughter has worked really hard. I haven't got a clue what they might get, though, depends what arbitrary figure the exam board decide on.'

I know exactly where you are coming from. My own ds3 had full marks in coursework and an A grade mock, and got a (top) C. We knew this would be his toughest module, but he should have got A overall. He has a B. That might stop him doing medicine, which is just awful and pointless.

Oops pressed post! Yes, I am dreading trying to predict grades next year. I have no confidence in it.

Ofqal have admitted there is a problem with the English GCSE but say that with the variety of English style GCSE/IGCSE available it is hard to standardise correctly every time. I'm hoping as my DC did English there will be some movement there.

Ofqal are travelling to Leeds to speak to leaders there.

Is this all to pacify people or will they budge? My DC's school had over a 20% drop - a well regarded comp. My own grammar school following dual award had about a 5% drop.

Those schools severely affected really should be investigated and results scrutinized. It really matters to these children's prospects.

Late to the thread as been away.
DD absolutely devastated with AQA English result.
Had been told by school she had an A for the CA., also had an A for the mock, although target grade was B.
Ended up with CA downgraded to a B and a C for the exam with a C overall.
Looks like her UMS just one mark off a B - so will

School not concerned, as AC to C results best yet.
One of her friends, predicted A also got a C.
Unable to tell us whether rest will just be paper, or if CA has to be repeated also.

Although DD only going into yr11, will afect her 6th form applications quite badly. Really needed a B to be able to do subject not taken at GCSE.

Looks like her UMS just one mark off a B - so will be getting a remark.

As I see it , schools seemed to be arguing that when grades rose every year for the past 30 years , it is down to better teaching and better prepared students.But when grades go down it is grade deflation.It's got to be one or the otherf You can't have your cake and eat it!!
If this years exams are regraded then surely those pupils who took their GCSEs 20 years ago and every year since ought to have their grades adjusted too!

Sleepysand: "it has messed up the prospects and fragile self esteem of some really good, hard-working kids."

Er, if I'm looking at kids' GCSE results I'm interested in their mastery of the subject rather than whether their self-esteem is in tact.

Don't have time at the moment to read all this thread, but my DS has just told me of a boy in his school who has just had his English re marked, and has gone from a C to an A*!

catwooand LettyAshton

The whole point is that the goalposts obviously moved this year, not that the cohort didn't have a comparable mastery of the subject or were significantly less able, or less well taught. Even Wycombe Abbey, amongst other top performing schools, are reporting results that clearly demonstrate that www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9512114/Private-schools-examiners-moved-goalposts-on-GCSEs.html The IGCEs English Literature result at DDs superselective were down 40% with girls who had achieved maximum marks on CA marked down to a B. At Wycombe they have 35% A*s when in every other subject but English and Music they have over 70% and they had 70% in English Literature last year. Of course these schools sit the exams at the end of Year 11 so they were particularly vulnerable to the impact of this cack handed meddling with the grades. As an academic who gets called on for advice on admissions and has a DD who just did GCSEs it is quite clear to me that we are going to get applications from pupils who have the mastery of the subject that would normally have enabled them to get an A, getting a B but we have no way of distinguishing them from those whose mastery would only have ever got them a B. Even Gove has admitted it was unfair, though I can't believe anyone thinks this wasn't political .