OFQUAL have spoken.

[magentadreamer]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19438536

Not suprised with their findings. Grade boundaries stand but a resit in November is offered. Unable to read full report as ofqual site has crashed.

No, but I saw him on BBC Breakfast seemingly blaming this farce on Labour.

Get rid of modular exams and all forms of coursework. Yes, bring back the old O level style exams at the end of two years, but give warning that this is what is happening - very unfair on this years cohort to change the rules half way through the game.

Of course it won't happen because the teaching standards would have to be upped too much and there isn't the money for it.

Modular exams have already been scrapped in favour of exams at the end of the course only.

Not sure about getting rid of all forms of coursework, obviously it is a useful type of assessment for certain skills, especially in practical subjects.

Copthall KCL doesn't use the BMAT (I know, a little retentive to point that out). KCL is less competitive than Imperial or UCL though and perhaps the C was a blip, predicted to be pulled back up at A2.

Yellowtip No I am not at all retentive! I think you might have to be if you were quibbling between getting into Imperial or UCL and KCL! Though undoubtedly you would have to congratulate anyone getting into Imperial and UCL would you really refuse to be treated by someone trained somewhere further down the tables? KCL probed quite deeply about the C at interview but they gained enough other evidence, to make an offer conditional on getting it to a A. One of DD's peers just started at Queen Mary's having not arrived at their ambition until Year 13 and having had to embark on Chemistry AS then, with the intention of finishing A2 in a gap year, but has been accepted with As in Biology, Maths and French at A2 and Chemistry at AS (and Music AS in Year 12!). Another peer has been accepted for postgrad medicine after deciding on it towards the end of a Psychology degree. Meanwhile there are others with 4 straight Science A*/A A2s who have had to compromise on related degrees, and keep trying again and again to transfer. The mixed fortunes of her cohort, my DD considers, shows that these medical schools are seeing through who is in it for the Kudos and status and who actually cares, has the necessary personal qualities and is game for the blood and guts and pooh.

amothersplaceis inthe wrong If coursework is done away with at GCSE then it will widen the gap between GCSE, and A Level and undergraduate study. There is clearly a lot that can be improved but in terms of giving employers and universities evidence of skills and ability the current GCSE is far more fit for purpose than O levels were, even for the 70s, and coursework is an important part of that. Gove needs to be talking to employers and universities about what they want not harking back to his rose tinted Daily Mail vision of the past or indeed trying to adopt an exam system that works in the confucian culture in Singapore which values rote learning and exams, over thinking skills and creativity.

Coursework has finished in English and CA's have replaced this element.

Exploring a topic in detail with your teacher and then writing your argument/ creative response in controlled conditions allows the nervous type to also reach their potential. Polishing work rather than writing off the cuff is another skill needed by the big outside world.

O'levels allowed about 22% of the cohort to pass - Do we really want 80% to be seen as failures?

Just seen this! No Copthall I meant I was being retentive :) I don't think you read it as I intended. I thought it was fairly clear I meant me....

Quite agree about the medical schools searching hard for those with the right personal qualities. Arrogant applicants with reams of A*s can get a shock when they fail to get in, having assumed that they'd walk it.

Yellowtip I long to be more retentive!

And it rumbles on. Absolutely disgraceful. Definitely need an independent enquiry.

Letters to exam board leaked

Also how can the Welsh papers be re-marked and not the English ones! Total farce!

Having read the OFQUAL report and listened to the Select Committee interviewing OFQUAL officials, union leaders and school principals they all appear to agree that grades were inflated by the 5% students who took the controlled assessments in January and that the June units were relalistically marked.

To me the the only answer in the future is to have one exam board per subject, abolish controlled assessments and/or teacher marked coursework and maintain comparable standards in course content.

If the January controlled assessments were marked to leniently as it appears has been agreed by boards, schools and regulators, what are the schools now asking for?

Should the January units be remarked in the name of fairness to be fair to the students who submitted in June.

Or, should the government ask OFQUAL to allow massive grade inflation in the June English unit to placate schools and unions.

Or, should we stick with the June results which apparently according to all were the correct ones.

Whatever is decided, lets be honest with what is happening.

agree absolutely riddles.

Looks like the Welsh Government are not in agreement with OFQUAL over the GCSE problems!
There is a thread on the TES website regarding the GCSE English Language for the WJEC board
community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/602378.aspx
WJEC Ordered to Re-Grade GCSE English Language (But Only in Wales)

This affects my DD1 - and I have just sent off for a remark and her paper back at a cost of approx £45!!!

By the way I am in England!

Dare I question that given the Labour party's stance in England, would the Welsh Labour government stance be politically motivated.

Was political pressure put on the Welsh regulator!!

Depending on the motive behind the decision (fairness or improving year on year results) the English GCSE grades could go up or down.

I won't hold my breath for an honest answer.

The whole thing has now become political I fear.

It has become a nightmare - I can see why Gove will be able to introduce 'O' levels without too many grumbles, the way things are being manipulated!

My understanding was that the inflated grades in Jan would be nothing to do with the teachers' marking as teachers don't give out the grades, just a numerical mark. If the grade boundary was too low in Jan then that is entirely an exam board balls-up and nothing to do with teachers marking coursework at all.

riddlesgalore It has indeed become political. If you read back down the thread you will see that this debate has highlighted that this years debacle has not just affected English GCSE results at the C/D boundary though as Headteachers have highlighted this will have a long running and profound effect on the futures of a lot of young people. Heads at private schools are also highlighting anomolous results at the very top of the ability range. The Head of Wycombe Abbey has come out publicly to highlight that their results for English Literature are down from 70% A* last year to 30% this year, though in all other subject except English they remain at that high level of achievement. Other Heads are not so brave but I know that there are similar anomolies at a lot of other top schools, and these include IGCSE results. Is anyone seriously arguing this cohort at some of the countrys most selective schools were less able? The Head of Ofqual can wriggle and turn on the hook, the general press evaluation of her performance at the Select Committee was that she obfuscated with gobbledegook in a way that would do credit to Sir Humphrey in Yes Prime Minister, but it is very clear overall that these young people have been treated very unfairly because, whether Gove made it explicit or or Ofqual ambushed themselves out of fear arising from his rhetoric, it was made sure this year's results went down, however the pupils performed in the exams.

I also know from my own uni that the admissions process has been a nightmare this year because there have been some very strange shifts in A level results as well, on top of the increase in fees and the incentive to go fishing for those who do better than AAB. Some very highly respected universities such as SOAS and Southampton are highlighting the deep threats to their institutions as a result. We really don't know where the admissions process is going over the next few years except that we are going to be thrown back on to school references and other contextual data because exam results are suddenly a less reliable means of identifying the best candidates.

Few argue change isn't necessary but political meddling does not make for effective change, that needs a careful process of consultation, planning and implementation with all the professionals involved, teachers, examiners, universities and employers.

Teachers used the marks in January and their own judgement to decide whether students had obtained a suitable grade or whether they should study further to obtain higher grades. If happy the units were banked. The boards as is usual every year, warned schools that the grade boundaries could change once additional data was obtained. Educationalists are also aware that with a new course specification, boundaries are likely to change.

In some of the schools I am aware of, teachers used the January marks/boundaries for their grade predictions for June, and these were 15 - 20 % higher than the actual grades obtained in 2011. Isn't that massive grade inflation. Some of those schools are now crying foul, but surely they should have suspected something was amiss given that boards always tell them that boundaries change. Where is the common sense when they know that the vast majority of their students submit in June.

Doesn't make any sense to me that grade boundaries should change for the exact same piece of work just because more people have done it.

Either there's a pre- defined standard for a C grade (as there is supposed to be) or not.

Noblegiraffe, that's exactly it.

If a C is supposed to be the "gold standard" then OFQUAL, or the exam boards, or Gove, or whoever (please, don't let it be Gove), should specify exactly what they expect those children to be able to do.

Then we can teach them to do those things. The ones that can will get a C or above, the ones that can't won't, but at least we will be able to predict results with some accuracy.

In an ideal world Aviewfromthefridge, C's will have the same boundaries (standard levels) each year. However because of the number of exam boards and the complications involved in each exam board producing an exam with the same standard of difficulty for each boundary, this complicated procedure is undertaken each year to make sure each exam is allocated boundaries (e.g C/D) to reflect the difficulty level of the exam in question.

One exam board per subject would help to solve this problem.

I always assumed that teachers taught according to the requirements of the English curriculum. Teachers don't know the exam questions in advance do they? I assume they would be pushing ALL students to their full potential, not gearing their teaching to a particular level/grade. I presume that is why exam boards say they don't like to give out boundaries in advance.

Teachers know what skills will be assessed in each exam and how they will be marked. In the past, we've had a fairly accurate idea of roughly what skills are needed for each grade. Now, apparently it's a lottery.

And of course we encourage all children to reach their potential, but for children who are predicted Ds and Es, pushing them to get a C or above is doing that.

But the difficulties of producing an exam of the same difficulty each year which means that grade boundaries change slightly simply don't apply to controlled assessment where exactly the same piece of work was graded differently depending on when it was submitted.

In one major final maths module we also had the ridiculous situation where you needed 56% to get a C despite only 50% of the paper being C grade or below. You can't justify having to do B grade work to get a C however you dress up a 'lower ability' cohort. I suspect Ofqual pressure to reduce the pass rate there too.