GCSE Fiasco - Whats your thoughts as a parent involved

[LinBadd64]

Hi
Just as the title says really. I'm interested in how parents are dealing with the fiasco. Have you a child that were dealt a raw deal this summer? Are you a parent of a child due to sit their GCSE's this coming summer? Are your school supporting you and keeping you informed? Have you written to your M.P, School, Local Education Authority, Exam Board, OfQual about your concerns? If not why not?
There appears to be mountains of educators having their say but where are the parents of these children?

Are you a journalist perhaps?

webwiz no not at all although I do wish I was following this malarky. I'm a parent and just can't seem to find much parent reaction to the fiasco. I wopuld have expected parents to be up in arms, issuing e-petitions etc. Or maybe they are as confused as everyone else?

Think tanks/media maybe hope and pray that this fiasco will die down quicker if the reaction of parents is not sought?

I think our secondary school have analysed and appealed against results involved and contacted parents - so maybe parents have been reassured that those who hold the facts are doing the lobbying for them.

I am only involved in that my daughter sat the June exams. However, she was borderline B/C and got a mid-C, so was probably affected on UMS score but unaffected on grade. Her friend, a C/D borderline candidate who scored D (but by how much I do not know) has been advised to do a level 2 year 12 course, but she didn't get Maths at C+ either, so it is possible level 2 was the most appropriate option for her anyway.

My suspicions are that colleges will have to be somewhat flexible with intakes who were predicted C and got D or, otherwise, their income will be shafted! However, I don't know that because my daughter chose a non-standard year 12 option with no English requirement, so we haven't heard anything about the matter.

Kez100 Your first paragraph is maybe the reason for little being said by parents. Maybe its all above their heads and are leaving it to the professionals but I can't help but wonder.

I also find it really puzzling as to how students Controlled Assessments (CA's) can be marked down without the exam board even seeing them. Which is what happened in my daughters case. They have never seen the CA's so how can they be marked down from a C to D? They were not even part of a sample sent to exam board. I will certainly chase that issue up directly with AQA.

You are right F.E have no choice really but to be flexible or over the next couple of years their intakes and finances will take a blow.

What I worry about is how many "doomed to fail" students will become Not in Education Employment or Training statistics (NEETS) during the next couple of years. This may cause a gap in jobs market as there will be a bank of young people without basic English skills.

I think the fiasco actually started way earlier when every year the results went up. It was going to have to stop some time, and then there was always going to be a fall out.

Dd almost certainly dropped a grade in English language due to this, but we're not too worried (it wasn't the critical C/D border). Her sixth form entered her for critical thinking (which normally requires the higher English grade) rather than general studies presumably on the strength of her other GCSEs, although I don't think she had strong opinions either way on those two in any case. I doubt somewhat that one grade lower at GCSE will have a big impact on the rest of her life.

inbadd - technically what you have posted is wrong. But it is compliacted, so I am not surprise you have made that error.

Controlled Assessments were not marked down. This is how I understand it worked (all details have been made up -just for illustration):

1. A child sat a controlled assessment "discuss Curly's wife" and teachers marked it and gave it 26 marks. The school was moderated and they agreed that the school was accurate. The student scores 26 marks. The school sends the Controlled assessment in for banking in January 2012 and the exam board decide that 23 marks is a C and 34 marks a B. This piece of work scores a C.

1. Another child sat the same controlled assessment "discuss Curly's wife" and teachers marked it and gave it 26 marks. The school was moderated and they agreed that the school was accurate. The student scores 26 marks. The school sends the Controlled assessment in for banking in June 2012 and the exam board decide that 28 marks is a C and 38 marks a B. This piece of work scores a D.

It was borderline changes that did it, not the raw score your daughter achieved.

Yes, it is complicated. And it is even more complicated if you build in anomolies on the foundation exam too. Back to your original question - probably why parents are leaving it to schools etc - it is just so difficult to fathom.

glaurung One grade lower will make a massive difference, lots of employers now require 5 GCSE's grades A-C including English and Maths.

I suppose it means most students will just be re-sitting in college, although that will detract from their timetable when choosing their other subjects.
Also what about the Students who are now no longer interested in re-sitting for a third year?

Kez100 That makes a bit more sense and highlights the disadvantages the June Students were faced with.
If Schools were not told what a grade C looked like for June and only what a grade C looked like for January then the June Students never stood a chance of obtaining a C if they were borderline.

A shambolic mess.

DeWe - please explain how the above fallout is justified?

I fully agree that we need more rigour - maybe harder exams, harsher marking, more marks for technical accuracy. Maybe a completely different exam (my preference). Anything valid. I do not agree, in any way whatsoever, with the ridiculous way they made the changes, and I cannot believe how anyone can.

Linbadd - my daughter passed Maths in the November and dedicated the six months saved curriculum time to English Lang and Lit (rather than try for a B in Maths). This moved her from C/D borderline to the B/C borderline (although a B was only ever going to be on an extremely good day). By pure luck of this decision, she managed to cushion herself from this debacle. I am, therefore, very sensitive to students and parents in this situation - it could, so easily, have been us.

Linbadd, if one grade lower means a dc no longer has the magic 5A*-C GCSE grades then I accept it is of importance, but Dd's grade did not drop below C and I struggle to envisage any scenario it will make a massive difference to her. If she were to apply for medicine it would cut down her options, beyond that I can't think of anything.

I do agree it's unfair and a mess Kez, but I'm not entirely sure using the Jan boundaries for everyone this year would be completely fair to those sitting next year when the standards will be tougher again, or for those sitting last year when it was tougher too. We need the standards to be reasonably consistent over time, so it's really the Jan boundaries that need to come down (and maybe the June ones up a bit as well) but I can't see that they can do that this long after the event.

glaurung and I have debated this elsewhere. Without a doubt my DD's school results were affected and alongside the scandal of pupils affected at the C/D boundary private schools seem to have been particularly affected at the A*/A/B boundary, and it wasn't just English. The schools are seeking remarks and remoderation, have been outspoken in the press and are saying they will highlight anomolies and actual UMS marks for those at the boundaries in uni and other references. Perhaps parents feel that there aren't any real means of expressing their dissatisfaction and aren't motivated to create any when the professionals are unanimously highlighting what is basically an undermining of the credibility of the qualifications and exam boards?

I have two hats on as a parent and academic (people forget the people judgeing uni applications are human beings and some even procreate). I have always said this is going to lead to a greater emphasis on using references and contextual information in assessing candidates, so dropping a grade in GCSE is less likely to affect your chances ( but it will at some unis) . However now that the dust has settled a bit it is clear that there has been a much more fundamental shake up in the admission process this year. The A level results were also deflated and a far greater number of candidates who were expected to meet their AAA offers for our course just didn't, and I do not believe that is because they are less able than previous cohorts. Together with the reduction in the number of applications resulting from increased fees and the incentive for unis to go fishing for AAB applicants (for the first time unis can expand courses providing the students have better than AAB) this has meant that unis have been far more flexible about taking candidates who didn't make their required grades and clearing saw courses and unis available that would never have appeared in other years . Respected institutions like Southampton and SOAS are already saying that this development represents a threat not just to courses but their existence, Southampton are down 600 students. I can't believe that was what the government intended. It's a mismanaged mess but as a parent with a DC who went through the admissions process a couple of years ago at it's most competitive when missing your offer by 1UMS mark, even with powerful advocacy from the Head, could be enough to scupper your chances of getting into any good, certainly RG/1994, university I do feel that in two years time DD's cohort will have a fairer chance.

I just hope employers will also judge school leavers with these new lower grades fairly.

Sorry LinBadd64 your OP sounded like research for an article

I have a DS in year 11 and as a parent I am saddened by the political meddling in education. DS works hard and will adapt to any system of assessment but it is helpful to know what sort of standard you are aiming for and not have it changed at the last minute. He has actually taken his English Language GCSE exam and completed all the controlled assessments but they haven't been submitted yet. He makes the A* using the June CA boundaries but his school are twitchy about the whole thing and have suggested he resit the exam to make sure. A bit of stability would be a good thing for education but no chance of that in the near future.

We weren't affected as critically as those on the C/D borderline, but DS ended up with one mark off an A, when, according to his (highly experienced) teacher, he was clearly an A student and had been all thorugh the course. We asked if she would recommend us applying for a re-mark (willing to pay ourselves) and she did, although she told me that the whole cohort had done noticeably poorer on the 'Inspector Calls/Mockingbird' paper than the other. This flew in the face of all previous assessments.

Yesterday we received a letter from the school saying that they were asking for a whole batch of papers to be re-marked, including ds's as he was so near the grade boundary, at the school's expense.

We shall wait and see!

Well, my dd got an unexpected A for English language(predicted A) and an unexpected B for literature(predicted A/A) But when she came home from the literature exam and told me what she had written, she had obviously missed the point completely with one of her essays- and it transpired that she got a C for that essay. So it's not always down to the marking!

Kez100 Gove was very clear to the Select Committee that re-mark was an option but that he didn't want to "get anyone's hopes up". The only interpretation of this that I can gather is that grade % have been filled and therefore any improvement in grades would be extraordinary. I'd love to hear results of re-marks.

On the point of teachers assessing according to marks my daughters teacher differs. She said her CA (Of Mice and Men for example) was at a grade C standard and therefore gave it a mark of "X". Teachers seem to mark according to grades and THEN convert the grade to a mark. MY concern is that the exam board, at the instruction of Ofqual, have reduced this grade based on the marks given rather than look at ALL work affected. If teacher thought it was a C they gave "X" but exam boards/Ofqual made "X" worth a grade lower!

In other words if the school are thinking a grade equals "X" marks and mark accordingly it is then wrong and unfair for exam boards to change this (as they did between Jan 2012 and June 2012). What chance do our kids have if their teachers tell them one thing based on the information from exam boards only for exam boards to change this without notice??

Well, ds thought that paper he 'only' got a B for was one he'd done well on! And that he'd duffed the paper he then got a high A for.

The school has said that two students have already been re-marked and gone up a grade - hence the decision to send in more, perhaps?

I didn't think Teachers knew what grade a piece of work was (other than by using January borderlines)

Our Teachers told us they marked in bands 1-5 and they knew the band of the work but could not give a Grade for a piece of work.

That's not how the grading should work Linnbad. Rather than thinking this work is a C and then giving it that score, teachers were given set criteria, so if the work showed various specified features then it would achieve a score in a set band. The teachers did tend to assume that a certain band implied a 'C' grade, but in the event (in June at least) a higher threshold was needed.

On remarks, Dd was just below a grade boundary in both Englishes and both were remarked - her Language result stayed the same and Lit. went up by 3ums. There were 3 lit. exams, but one was graded much lower than the other two, so the lowest was the one that was remarked and the grade for both that paper and the overall grade increased. The remark process is being operated in the same way as usual, so the original mark will only change if the first marker is judged to have made a mistake, but the grade boundaries (which is what most people have an issue with) are not changing, hence the not getting your hopes up comment by Gove. I would think though that if the remark examiner strongly disagrees with the way the whole thing has been handled then they may be more likely to find an extra mark or two (or err on the generous side) as English must be one of the more subjective subjects, but probably they all just mark to the best of their ability using the mark scheme given.

It's so unfair. My DD has been a predicted D all the way through the GCSE Eng Lang course. In the end she worked really hard and was just 3 marks off a C. If she had taken this exam in January she would've had a C. So for putting in a lot of extra effort and trying to raise her mark she is rewarded with a D. I'm sure there are other children in this predicament who now, like her think 'I hate school and studying what's the point?'. She has decided to take an NVQ at the local college because she is adament she no longer wants to attend school classes and wants to be practically assessed.