2014 GCSE league tables

[MaeMobley]

When do these get published? I see from the BBC website that it was January last year.

Wordfactory there are those at the very top of the tree in expertise and leadership in education who are adamant that IGCSE are not only not hugely more difficult than GCSE but without any shadow of a doubt easier. I've queried it, and they've been absolutely clear, and given their knowledge of these things I'm going to assume that they're right. I think there may have been an argument while GCSEs could be taken in modular form but not now apparently, and never in those cases where schools opted to take GCSE in linear form. Independent school parents need to be cynical about what they're being sold. Different doesn't necessarily = more challenging.

TP you're being hysterical. This has got nothing to do with individual kids and it won't affect them.

molio I too have spoken to 'those at the very top' and regularly.

I also see the evidence every single day myself.

I'm not saying there is much in it. But for a variety if reasons it is currently easier to bag an A* in GCSE than an IGCSE.

Though when the 3% cap comes in this will change .

Word I have taught both and seen the results from both - if a child is going to get an A* they will regardless of which .... It is easier to get a C in IGCSE though. As for being more challenging in 95% of the subjects it is the same course - just without the controlled assessment element

Does any admission officer really care whether it's iGCSE or GCSE? Most kids do what they're given, so it's all relative to what others in the cohort managed on that type of test. Comparing between GCSE-iGCSE is close to pointless.

I still can't see how anybody has been "let down" except indie sector schools who will have to get off own fat arses to generate their own league tables.

Word I'm not vying with you to see who speaks more often to big bods I'm sure we're both hugely blessed, but I completely and utterly accept the evidence that GCSEs are tougher. One very interesting fact is that whenever a school adopts IGCSEs its results improve. Why? IGCSEs weren't designed for the UK and they've become a marketing tool for indies. IB is the same.

The iGCSEs are a known stable quantity with more teaching time, flexibility in syllabus, less obtusely phrased questions in the sciences and maths. What is there not to like? Surely the point of the so-called debacle of the league tables is that the government is obviously worried that state schools if given the choice would stick with something tried and tested like the iGCSEs rather than help evolve the new GCSEs. By these league tables the government is using a large stick to send a warning and prevent state schools voting with their feet.

The spread of IGCSEs was a far more effective and successful gaming of the system than multiple retakes ever was. The private schools achieved this partly by getting Gove on board but mainly by convincing their paying customers that the exams were so much more rigorous (when it is obvious that they aren't) and just so much better than the exams the ordinary people do. Something those paying customers were happy to believe, obviously. The wheels began to fall off when lots of state schools began adopting IGCSEs for their less able kids - while keeping GCSES for the more able ones. I do feel sorry for those schools and kids because they entered the exams in good faith. But I feel sorrier for kids with excellent grades in GCSEs who are told that their exams were less rigorous than the exams sat by the private school kids - it's very frustrating when you know that the IGCSEs sat by the private school kids are the same IGSEs sat by the less able kids in some state schools.

I think regardless of whether it is Gcse or iGcse, the majority of pupils will do better with terminal exams with no Controlled assessments as most will be 16 when they take the exams. With modular exams and C.A.s, some are assessed at 14 which is obviously going to be a disadvantage for most.

I have seen some appalling cheating going on in CAs - in my training school even the HT helped the kids cheat.
Far better to get rid of them and used that time for teaching and learning.

Agree Livia that it's a distinct advantage to redeploy the time to teaching. Also the idiocy of assessing at 14 or even 13 in some cases, where exams are taken in Y10.

It is actually very funny how many indie parents buy into whatever they're told.

It's all very well saying get rid of controlled assessments but as someone who went through O Levels with 100% exams and someone who now teaches English in a state school I can categorically say that one size does not fit all. Not all children are high fliers (although on MN the majority of parents seem to have them!) my adorable Year 10 class are hardworking, inquisitive and bright - but not one of them has a target higher than an E.
In previous years they would have sat entry level English along side their GCSE to give them key skills - now they have to sit Literature rather than just English (a course that contained literature elements such as Shakespeare). Luckily they miss the 100% exam but these pupils need the opportunity to be able to produce controlled assessment prior the exam as they will struggle to get their Es. For many of them it is a memory thing as marks are based on quotes and pupils taught how to write an answer.
It is really sad that the well being and education of these children is not being taken in to account.

Molio I am genuinely interested to know from what data you derive the statement that schools which adopt iGCSE improve their results? Are you talking percentage of A* or Cs rather than Ds? Also do you really think IB is easier than A levels rather than just a marketing attempt to cater for international pupils who have been in an IB type system and may need to apply for international pupils? One of my DCs would have been very attracted to IB but certainly in schools that did both it did not seem the easier option.

molio what's far funnier is that some random housewife on T'internet expects everyone to bow to her superior knowledge ...

Word don't be so touchy. Nothing wrong with picking up someone when they get self-important. You don't often but you do sometimes. Incidentally I think I might be more northern than you, so need need to t' me . I wouldn't expect anyone to bow to my knowledge superior or otherwise but I am absolutely prepared to bow to the knowledge of someone I occasionally work with whose own knowledge is second to none and whose experience is vast. I queried it when the subject came up for discussion but accept the answer completely. Some people you just don't doubt. Not many but some. summerends I wasn't given copies of data, I didn't need to be, I was simply talked through it - very recently. It's not that big a deal and apologies if it offends the indie mums.

It is actually very funny how many indie parents buy into whatever they're told.

Or then again perhaps indie parents actually have expertise and check what they are told with professionals. Writing things on threads again and again doesn't actually make them true.

BTW if it were indeed true that IGCSEs were much easier, and hence much worse preparation for AS/A2, one would expect students who had done IGCSEs to do worse in the latter. This does not happen - the very same schools who had 0% in the GCSE league tables topped the DoE A2 tables.

Moreover if an A at IGCSE was considered to be significantly easier by Oxford they would make cuts in their applications based on 6 A at GCSE but 7-8+ A at IGCSE. They don't. Unless you want to advocate a conspiracy in favour of private schools, this says that the Oxford admissions tutors aren't seeing that much difference between As at GCSE/IGCSE.

Personally I am not a fan of IB and I consider it poor preparation for STEM degrees. However, IB clearly offers a breadth that the current AS/A2 system does not and is more appropriate for some pupils. It is offered not just by private schools but also by some state sixth forms with enough pupils/resources and it is certainly not easy to get the very high scores at IB required by top UK universities. I don't accept that IB is just a marketing thing, although I must admit that my DC (deliberately) don't go to an IB school.

www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/education/research/crestem/Research/Current-Projects/CogAcc/files/The-IGCSE-Situation.pdf

www.tutors-international.com/cambridge-international-exam-board-backpedal-over-true-value-of-igcse-results/

www.bst.ac.jp/principalsblog/igcsegcse-spot-the-difference/

I haven't noticed many indie parents (in real life or on here) apologising for claiming their IGCSEs were so much harder than the 'easy' GCSEs state kids do after it became widely known that many state schools were swapping to IGCSE for their less able kids because the exams were easier...In fact, I didn't notice any indie parents apologising. Instead I noted a scramble to the 'ah but it's harder to get an A which is of course what matters in relation to my child' position instead. When one of the things that triggered the switch was the downgrading debacle in certain GCSEs (at the A/A boundary) a few years ago which did not hit IGCSE at all - so, once again, I'm not buying what they (or their schools) are selling. IGCSEs are free from political chicanery, that I agree, at the moment this makes them a much safer easier and stress free option than GCSEs. So I can completely see why paying schools in particular adopt them - but they should be honest about their commercial motivation, not try to claim some kind of academic superiority that simply doesn't exist.

gently I have DC taking both - I have no skin in this particular game. Or perhaps it's fairer to say that I have all my skin in it.

Both are at private school.

DS school chooses IGCSE for a number of reasons. To ensure the boys all get a C aint one of them!

DD's school chooses GCSE. It's mixed ability. The grades are fab. If there were any advanatge for these girls in taking IGCSE, trust me they would be! The school's MO is doing whatever it takes to get each girl a good set of grades, even if they're not the brightest.

The truth is it is much easier to bank nice high marks in CAs, ISAs, pre-prepared orals, during the school year, than have it all riding on black in May.

DD has managed to bank full scores in all her CAs so far in English and Spanish and History. It really isn't tough to do that. The spanish written paper even included a vocabulary list!!!

The only IGCSEs DD is doing is in French. Introduced for the girls likely to do French A level, because the content is (a bit) more challenging and so better prep.

uilen there's no reason why state school parents can't be well informed either.

Also, I haven't written anything over and over again, I've said a couple of times, fairly mildly, that IGCSE's aren't tougher than GCSEs. That's rather different to your suggestion that I said IGCSEs are 'much' or 'significantly' easier, which I didn't.

It is actually very funny how often things are distorted on threads to impute a wholly different meaning to what was originally said (well not very perhaps, but quite).

The third link on TalkinPeace's post has quotes from Oxford Home Schooling which offers both GCSEs and IGCSEs, and they are quoted as saying, " There is no doubt that IGCSE Maths is more demanding...there are a number of sub-A-level topics, like calculus and matrices on the IGCSE spec." For other subjects (English aside), "The real difference comes in the breadth and depth of coverage of each topic...We would estimate that there is typically an extra 20%-30% to learn for each IGCSE as compared to its GCSE equivalent."

When schools such as King's College Wimbledon offer IGCSEs in many subjects plus the IB and then send over 25% of every year group to Oxford or Cambridge you've got to as yourself why? It's not to game the system I'm sure of that!

Word - I've never (until now) read any posts from you being disparaging about the exams taken by state school kids! You are most decidedly not the target of my (mild) irritation in this matter. The fact remains that whatever reasons your two schools had for adopting IGCSEs or not there are schools in both sectors which have fled to IGCSE as a safe haven, either because of the absence of political chicanery, the relative height of the D/C hurdle, or the need to follow the herd so as not to lose competitive advantage.

DD1 also got a full house of full marks for English and History CAs when she was doing them. Dyslexic DS however is deliriously happy with his (hopefully) A grade marks so far and would look a bit at you if he heard your suggestion that it's easy to get full marks. As, to be honest, do I. It isn't, not for most kids.

A few years ago it was often said that the Cambridge igcses were much tougher than the edexcel ones, so it is quite possible they are both harder than and easier than GCSEs according to which syllabus is used. There is quite likely a difference across subjects too. However, there have always been GCSE syllabuses that are rumoured to be easier or harder too (modular vs linear maths was a case in point recently), so i suspect any differences between GCSEs and igcses are fairly minimal and not substantially different to the normal variation between syllabuses of different courses. The syllabuses are all broadly similar, its definitely not worth arguing about.

Molio I understand that you have been talked through some results by an impeccable source (IYO) rather than have them at hand. However from that are you able to address the myth of whether the results improved as much for the A as for the % of Cs. My DCs are in both systems so similarly to WF* I don't really care (although I do care about the quality of teaching and how much is covered beyond what is required to get the grades).

TP the type of language in which your first link was written makes me very thankful I don't have to read that sort of thing for a living.