Year 9 exams and GCSE's

[PareyMortas]

Dd1 is at a very academic grammar school, my impression is that overall she's somewhere in the middle of the class in ability. They sat some internal exams before half term and has been getting results back this week. I'm confused. Some subjects they're reporting using SATs levels and some GCSE. Almost all of the GCSE's she's had a level B, I asked her if they were predicted levels or the actual results and she was sure they're results. She also said there were a handful of girls who got A's. how can this be? They don't officially start GCSE's until next year and won't take the exams for another two years. What are the girls who've already got A's do for the next two years? It can't take two years to move up from a B to an A so there must be something I'm missing yes?

This isn't a stealth boast, sort of the opposite.

Until recently, it has been common for students to sit some GCSE exams early. I teach at a FE college, so we have students come up from a wide range of different schools and I have seen the following done:

Some students sit some GCSEs early so that they can take other GCSEs afterwards, giving them more GCSEs to their name.

Some students take the GCSEs early, so that they can then resit them to improve their grade. I know one school used to get the students to sit as many of them as possible in Jan, so they mostly did focused resits in the may.

Some students sit the GCSEs early and then make a start on doing an AS level in their year 11. This is usually only in one or two subjects at best.

Some students sit their GCSE early so that they can do the EPQ. Personally, I think this one is a big ask of year 11 students, and I have only seen it reserved for the g&t students.

But, sitting some GCSEs early has not been uncommon at all. Gove is stopping it all now though, so it won't be happening much longer.

Forgot to add that some start studying for their GCSEs early, so allow them to take more in less time. This is more common in subjects like GCSE RS, where students might start studying for the GCSE in year 9, take some of the exams in year 10, and the rest in year 11. This has been done to enable the student to get the full GCSE in one hour a week's worth of lessons (usually only enough for a short course GCSE).

If they were real gcse exams then your dd wouldnt get the results till august, it sounds like they are using her test results to give you an idea of the sort of grade she will get if she gets that same sort of % in her actual gcse

My ds currently yr 11 doing his gcse's had the same in yr9. We had some give a level as normal but some teachers also put a grade like gcse. One teacher wrote that if he got the same sort of % right in his gcse exam that he had just got in his test then he would be likely to get a certain grade in his gcse. So in a way it was a prediction of what grade he could get hth
You should get at the beginning of yr10 her predicted gcse grades for all subjects

My dd is at the same stage and as I understand it the 'grade' is just an indication of what you might get if you continue to work at that level. It just gives an idea of whether you're on the right track or could up your game.

So yes a gcse prediction based on performance now.

My DS (yr 10) last November was a few marks of an A in a school written IGCSE level exam (the questions were obviously related to areas covered in lessons) . The teacher said that this meant that with 18 months to go he could easily get an A. Does the result not show that today she would get a B but this means with effort and more than two years to go she easily get at least an A? This is how I would interpret it.
"What are the girls who've already got A's do for the next two years?"
This is a much more interesting question this is what my DS's school do in some subjects "We aim to complete a large part of the IGCSE syllabus (by the end of yr 10) so that we can deliver 'transition' style courses from the beginning of the third year. These are courses covering topics that reinforce the GCSE material but do not trespass on future work for specialist study in Sixth Book (6th form) or in other subjects they start the Pre U even in yr 10 but this of course is not overly beneficial to those who have no intention of studying the subject to Pre U. It has to be hoped that whatever your DD's school offer its not a whole year of endlessly going over exam papers for yr 11.

My DD just took her Y8 end of year exams. The questions were of GCSE level as opposed to the exam being the real thing. I suspect that is what has happened at your school.

Your DC won't have studied the whole GCSE syllabus yet. So all the results show is that the girls were examined in the GCSE topics that they have studied and those answers were B or A standard.

I'm not sure I'm any clearer, luckily DD is a lot brighter than me . I do know that her school aren't keen on pupils taking too many GCSE's their policy is to follow the English Bacc and two further options. There was a lot of talk about quality not quantity.

Have you thought about making an appointment and asking teh school to explain it to you?

They could be GCSE grades: if she took them in Nov or Jan the school would've got the results in March. I think they probably are, for the reasons given by other posters above - early entry to either improve grades and/or fit other GCSEs in next year.

I don't understand the reason for the confusion?

"Year 9" "Internal exam" "results back this week"

Why would anyone think that it's the real thing?

At DS's school the 11+ selection process is geared towards selecting pupils that are 6-12 months ahead of the national average in English and Maths. By the end of Year 8 they are 2 years ahead. But for 'new' subjects like Music and DT they progress at a speed similar to the NC. This why for internal EOY exams they got a mixture of SAT papers and past GCSE papers.

Oh no I didn't think she'd sat the real thing, my goodness we'd know about if she had. I've logged in to the school website and it transpires that there was a report just before Easter that I didn't know about. It has exam grades and predicted grades so is much clearer.