will GCSEs be harder from 2016?

[2catsfighting]

I was wondering about families with children of different ages, and the different educational challenges they face. My eldest DS's education was at the time when course work was able to be repeated. His sibling seems to have a much tougher time of it.

The trouble in this country as I see it is that things are always done back to front - endless staring at mark schemes and then training pupils over and over until they fit into that mark scheme, instead of teaching the subject/content and then the assessment being based on that.

"The crazy high figures quoted between 1997 and 2010 related to"

That is convincing so I'll withdraw "stout" and leave that as a testament to the joy of league tables. You're not having maths though because that definitely took a dive

"things are always done back to front"

I didn't notice this at primary, but with DD now in Y7 there's a significant "need to know" for assessment feel. She'll talk about having learnt something but wasn't given the context, the story it sits in.

Happens very much in primary as well - endless Sats practice!!

there's a significant "need to know" for assessment feel.

And that maps through into university, too, although it's (some) students demanding it rather than either lecturers or "the system" demanding it. As we set and mark our own exams we can't blame anyone but ourselves if it happens, though.

I remember asking my teachers "Will this be in the exam?" 25 years ago. I think it's human nature to want to get the greatest possible credit for the minimum possible work.

That's fair enough, but what's not ok imo is teachers getting sucked in and gearing all their "teaching" towards fitting answers to mark schemes.

DorothyL - it's not teachers who have been "sucked in"; it's the fact we are judged by our exam results (note I said ours not the students), in fact our pay is now dependant on them . Schools are judged on them and now HT's jobs depend on them - it's only going to get worse

Yes sorry I phrased that wrong, I know teachers are under pressure to do this.

"I think expecting them to do exams on Shakespeare, poetry, a play and two novels in one go is particularly hard if they are keeping them as closed book."

That's what we had to do back in 1975. Yes it was hard, but we were taught in a way so that we were able to do that.

Why did they do away with O levels? I know that one of the reasons was to do away with the two tier system of O levels and CSEs, but we still have a two tier system with foundation maths and English, and BTECs.

French GCSE sounds like a joke. Anyone with a decent memory could pass it, and how does it prepare for A level?

Bunbaker - remember that O levels of the sort you describe were only taken by the top 20?% or so. We have to prepare all our students for these new exams (including kids who can't really read!) and then be carpeted and possibly have our pay docked over their results! Madness.

And no tiered paper in English any more. I think maths have managed to keep theirs. I foresee an awful lot of sitting staring out of the window for 2 and a quarter hours worth of exams for the very weakest pupils.

French GCSE sounds like a joke. Anyone with a decent memory could pass it

To be honest, I think in some ways that applies to science as well, and to some of the old O levels.

With French the 60% CA you prep in advance and learn and spout. But you do still need to do the prep (unless you have a tutor or parent who 'helps' too much). It is also of course easier to learn stuff you actually understand. You also have to be able to understand written and spoken French for the exam, so you do need to know some vocab and grammar.
However I do agree that critically, you can do well without being able to hold a random conversation or write a correct short note, which is draft.

I am currently helping DD1 revise for her Science GCSEs. It is possible to pass them by just learning the facts, even if your deeper understanding is very shaky. Indeed, there are certain concepts she really struggles with, but at this point she is going with 'OK, that's what I need to say'.

With the old O level English Lit, I think we had to do much less detailed analysis of the texts that DD is having to do. Because it was closed book, you had to know the plot and some quotes, but you didn't have to pick it all apart.

The old history O level was very much spouting facts iirc. The GCSE emphasis on analysing sources, and considering bias and accuracy within a context of also knowing facts, is I think much better.

I like the 2 tier foundation & higher within the same qualification. You teach the same syllabus (which was not done so much for O level and CSE I believe), at the rate the students understand it, and you can make a late decision (a few weeks before) on whether to enter the Higher or Foundation paper, rather than deciding at the start of y10.

BTEC is different because of the very different way of assessing it.

I teach at a school in a largely deprived area and a lot of our kids don't have the emotional resilience for all-exam GCSEs. It's frightening being told - however nicely and will as much support and outstanding teaching as possible - that they have one shot at something and that's it. Personally, I'm glad to see CA go as it takes a whole swathe I stress with it but I don't think it's in the best interests of our young people.

holden That is a good point. I also suspect that maybe kids without parental backup can succeed more easily with the staggered CAs than with concentrated exams. Our household is revolving around GCSEs at the moment, because we can. I imagine many others can't, or won't.

I think that whilst open book English lit seems easier than closed book, actually the line by line analysis required for a good grade is putting the cart before the horse.

We're asking students to comment on the minutiae before they've been schooled in the cannon and context.

It's bloody dull.

A number of subjects have already been made 'more rigorous', which appears to mean harder. Having analysed the exam results, papers and scripts for my subject, this is certainly the case. This is going to increase.
I have no problem with rigour, but it is an erosion of comprehensive education. The easy questions were the ones that made the news but we're included (in some papers) do that you could differentiate between achievement at the lower end.

I feel very sorry for those students taking exams in the next few years. It has been an utter shambles.

As has the intro of the new a levels but that is another story!

I'm thankful that as a maths teacher our new A-level has been put back to 2017 so we've got time to sort the new GCSE first.

However, what really made me lose faith in the powers that be having any idea of what they are doing is that the maths GCSE was only put back to 2017 quite recently. It was pointed out that perhaps it would be a good idea to restrict the new A-level to students who had taken the new GCSE so they would be able to assume that the students taking it had been taught the new, harder GCSE content. This wasn't seen to be a bloody obvious necessity from the start.
In other subjects you've still got students who will be taking the new harder a-levels after taking the old, easier GCSEs. I don't see how this can do anything apart from disadvantage them compared to later cohorts.

To tHe poster who said her current year 9 son will be doing of mice and men. He won't as it is not on the curriculum.
The new English exam is horrific for anyone less than a B grade candidate. The reading non fiction is one modern piece and one pre 20th century piece - the sample I saw had an article by John Humphries to be compared to one by Dickens which was wordy and difficult. I don't get that at all. If trying to improve reading skills why add something in an exam that is irrelevant to today's reading skills? Yes study an old text for literature, but language is progressive. We are in for a bumpy ride and many many children will not reach the expected grade - unless they considerably drop the grade boundaries ...

They have said that the percentage of students getting a C or above on the old GCSE would be used to fix the grade boundary for a grade 4 on the new GCSE. God knows how low it's going to have to be.

But the emphasis should be on what children should know/learn/be able to do, not on what they can achieve good grades in. Not saying that the new exams got that right, but the mfl exams for example were doing a massive disservice to students by not achieving spontaneous language production at all. Or English - endless going on about Of Mice and Men, but no knowledge of other literature. I was talking to some a level students the other day and they'd never heard of Brave New World!

It's crap isn't it noble. I think I've mentioned this on here before, but when Singapore introduced their new maths curriculum a couple of years ago they introduced it a year at a time, starting with P1 and S1, then applying it to P2 and S2 as well in the second year. And they haven't made any huge changes from the previous version as far as I can see.

Given the huge changes that have been made at all key stages I think it needed time before the qualifications changed. You need the year 10 cohort to have had enough time to be taught the new ks3 content and first teaching for a new a level shouldn't happen until the children in year 12 have the new gcse qualification.

Finding this thread depressing and terrifying in equal measure!
Dd is in year 7 - really hoping we know what's going on when she gets to GCSE... Her school is still using levels to assess at the moment, but I don't know if they should be??
Think lots of parents are going to be completely baffled for the next few years, having only just about got their heads round levels! Poor kids and poor teachers

Er Dorothy, do you actually think you can get an English Literature GCSE by only studying Of Mice and Men?

They have to do poetry (modern and pre-1914), Shakespeare, a modern play and a novel too. That's not changing in the new system. You don't have to be sniffy about them not knowing Brave New World.

There are many things wrong with English as it stands (only teaching 2 scenes of Shakespeare in some cases, for example) but I am feeling the need to stick up for those teenagers you are criticising so blithely.

No of course they do more than just Of Mice and Men, but still not enough.

All that plus all the English Language Stuff, exam practice and Speaking and Listening (which doesn't even count any more) is quite a lot to get through in two years! The controlled assessments have taken up so much class time that fitting it all in is a nightmare. I will be glad to see the back of them.

Of course we would like teenagers to read widely. Many, many do, believe it or not. But adding more and more to the Literature GCSE syllabus is not the way to do that.