2014 GCSE league tables

[MaeMobley]

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

Both my children's selective independent schools do IGCSEs. They sure as hell don't need to do 'easier' qualifications, judging by the A level results and the university acceptances (Oxbridge, medical school, Ivy League, etc) and judging from the entry academic profile of the pupils at 12, according to the inspection reports, which is above average.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that there is more than one IGCSE examination board. I believe there are at least two, possibly three.

IGCSEs in many State schools (including the one of which I have the most direct knowledge) were used for students on the C/D Boundary.

I would kindly invite those of you with kids at private selective schools to go and understand the implications of that before you drivel on about "City jobs" and the date of the Magna Carta and hiring "analyists".

The C/D Boundary in Maths is about functional numeracy.
The C/D Boundary in English is about the ability to competently apply for a job or read a contract.

horsemadmom my seven DC to have taken GCSEs so far have all been at a state school where all exams have always been taken as linear and all in one go with no opportunity for re-sits at all. Plenty of state schools did that in recent years, only one tends not to hear about them. Not all schools opted to take modules and some schools, such as ours, didn't even do the cheaty thing of taking three or four subjects early to take the pressure of the second time round.

off, not of.

Horsemad

The point is that DCs need to be able to analyse facts and you can't do that if you haven't learned facts.

Yes you can. You can't analyse information if you haven't been given it, part of the analysis may or may not include evaluating the likelihood that the information is accurate/relevant/not in conflict with other info/legal/decent/honest/truthful etc

As I said, I do this. Not my DH. Me.

They have done all terminal GCSEs at my DDs' school for many years. All GCSEs will be terminal soon. They don't do loads of resits either.

Your comments indicate that not only do you not know much about what city recruiters are looking for but you also don't know much (other than the DM version) about GCSEs.

They didn't you know molio.

Your DCs school was very unusual in its choice of linear GCSE. Which is why it's reputation is so strong.

The majority of state schools chose modular with resits even for their top sets.

And gentlys DC go to the same school no?

It really was very unusual.

Word the girls do. My DS doesn't though and his school does linear too and has done for a while (not sure if for as long as the girls' school).

Actually, I think modular would be harder than linear. I realise I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks this but the thought of never being more than a few months away from an exam that properly mattered - my dear the STRESS! (Bit like that never being more than a few feet away from a rat thing...)

I agree that it was a horrid system.

I used to do a lift share with some girls who were in the last cohort to do proper modular ( 2013) and they seemed to be endlessly taking exams that 'mattered'. Or resists. Endless.

But the chunks of info to be learned were very manageable IYSWIM.

Modular worked better for lower ability : they took their GCSEs in the same way they would find employment : with the information to hand.

Its abolition has been driven by those who have little or no understanding of how blerdy hard in every hour of available school time some kids have to work just to get 5 x C at GCSE (or IGCSE)

I think there is more than one way of having little or no understanding how bloody hard in every hour of available school time some kids have to work.

I think it's a shame the modular option won't be available for those kids for whom it gave a fairer crack of the whip. I'm very glad that I never had to do modular exams because modular exams are, I suspect, not for the nervy.

Talkinpeace. I thought the whole point of "education and schooling" was to get children ready for employment. (or higher education not relevant here) Therefore surely the whole idea or mission of schooling is to get lower ability pupils numerate or literate enough for employment. The jobs they will be doing will no doubt use calculators, computers ,cash machines spell checkers etc.

Why then do the "authorities" make low ability pupils lives terrible with worry. This is a pointless obsession about getting an arbitrary 5 A-C Maths/English when in reality all "lower ability" students need in their work life is Calculator and a Spell Checker !.

Spell checkers are only any use to those who can spell
there / their .... here / hear .... wear / where

Calculators are great so long as you remember that garbage in = garbage out.
When I was marking ICAEW Coursework the lack of logic testing was shocking - answers out by a factor of a million in one memorable case.

Core GCSE work is about building logic and basic analysis in an inclusive manner. It was getting better and better at that.
Until Gove and his mini-me trashed it all
have you noticed that Cameroon trusts la Morgan so little that HE is doing Education announcements now

It is funny how this thread has progressed! It really doesn't matter for university admissions whether it is iGsce or Gcse, and after that point nobody will ever care which style of exam a person took!
For what it's worth, my friend teaches a science at a very good private school. They switched to iGcse to get away from doing Isas. They 'wasted' a lot of time and effort on them at Gcse and the pupils tended to do worse in that part of the course.
I have 2 DDs at state school. DD1 would have suited iGcse maths much better as she hated the style of questions she had to do as Gcse. She still went on and got a very high ums at AS level. DD2 did some practise IGcse past papers for maths and found they were just as easy as Gcse - except she hadn't been taught calculus at that stage but had covered other topics not examined in the iGcse instead.

helksbells that's not strictly true.

On the most competitive courses at the most selective universities, an applicant's GCSEs are given scrutiny.

And where academics were grumbling about the lack of transparency in a modular GCSE, the linear GCSEs and IGCSEs were easier to weigh up.

Whilst other factors were obviously at play ( not least the increase in sheer numbers ) I think the lack if faith in modular GCSEs played a part in the inflation of offers from universities. A standard ABB offer became AAA etc

Of course the re-introduction of linear GCSEs across the board and the stamping out of serial resits will resolve these issues.

It's good that on the UCAS form you can't hide the dates exams were taken either, so uni admissions people can see if you split the exams. Minor point compared to the lack of transparency with modules, but still relevant to assessing performance in the context of workload. The 'new' marking and deflation in grades is coming through now, so more and more B grades trickling through at the top universities I'd expect and schools reacting by entering pupils for fewer exams, so fewer kids with twelve or thirteen A* all taken in one go.

We were going to Secondary School open days at the time Private schools were starting to make the switch.

1. For several schools the push seem to have come from proposed changes to GCSE science which schools worried would provide a poorer preparation for A level. (For those with slightly longer memories there were real concerns then about GCSE grade inflaton and dumbing down - and no Gove to blame.)

1. MFL was the second driver for similar reasons. As I understand it, one school came a cropper on its French iGCSE results the first time round, as it was much harder.

1. The comment from a teacher at a GDST school was that the boys schools were leading the way because boys tended to do better at linear exams. Private girls schools had fewer problems as girls tended to be diligent about coursework.

1. There appeared to be a lot of cheating around coursework. One mother with older children told me, in complete seriousness, that an advantage of sending your child to boarding school was that the parent was not responsible for getting the coursework done. Another child used her brother's coursework for a school project, and was completely open about the fact the tutor had written it. (DD was furious as she had worked very hard on her project and felt she deserved the prize.)

1. IME the choosing of exams and boards is down to individual departments within schools and is mainly driven by syllabus. Teachers chose the board that most closely reflects the course they want to teach. Yes GCSE grades count, but for schools aiming to get pupils to good RG Universities, they are only a hurdle that needs to be passed on the way, not a major issue.

1. Several London schools, including Westminster and SPGS, seem to take CIE iGCSE English. I suspect this is a different exam to the iGCSE TiP is talking about. (Though have no idea why they do or what it is like on the C/D boundary.)

molio I hope things calm down.

The last few years of university offers have been like an arms race.

A* offers in particular are harsh ( unnecessary?) in humanities.

I have no idea whether iGCSEs are "harder" or "easier" than GCSEs. IGCSEs were created for DC who needed a linear final examination model because they were at schools that could not cope with modular exams or coursework.

If GCSEs are moving to linear structures maybe there will no longer be a requirement for differentiated iGCSEs and GCSEs?

I did my GCEs in the early 1980's
there was snobbery about hard and easy exam boards back then.
And as now, University offers did not reflect it.
QED