New maths GCSE exams declared too difficult by Ofqual

[noblegiraffe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32831905

So Ofqual have finished their investigation into the new GCSE maths sample material and concluded what any maths teacher could have told you all along: they were too hard. So now the exam boards will have to change them and send out new sample assessment materials.

The BBC news report says that schools will be starting teaching this GCSE in September, but the truth is that most schools have already started teaching them to Y9 as the extra content means that we needed to start as soon as possible.

What a fuck up. There is no way that the new GCSEs could have effectively been introduced so quickly, I suspect this will not be the last fiasco.

Shame on the government for working to a political timescale and not to one for the actual educational benefit of children.

My elder dc took part in the maths GCSE twin pilot and I think it was a better preparation for A level than the standard single GCSE my younger dc took last summer.
The school wanted to continue with it but it was abandoned when Gove brought in the change from modular to terminal exams for young people who were already halfway through the syllabus and there simply wasn't time to teach twin maths as well.
Also, an additional benefit to twin maths was two chances for borderline students to get the magic C grade.

The poor teachers work so hard to get the best results for our offspring but they are never allowed consistency to teach the same syllabus for any length of time.

As an aside, it seems that AS maths has been made more difficult too this year, is this actually true? (C1 and C2 Edexcel)

Doesn't affect them, Oliversmum, ours are finishing before this new syllabus has to applied.

The problem with the "how will they compare with the previous year?" argument is that it's not an argument for pilots, trials and so on, it's an argument for still doing school certificate circa 1918. There have been multiple changes in grading over the years, most notably the move from School Certificate to O and A Levels in 1951, the introduction of graded A Levels in 1963, the harmonisation of O Level grades in 1975 (when O Levels were harmonised to A-C being notionally matriculation "pass" and D onwards being lower grades, from a variety of previous systems that varied from board to board), the move from norm-referenced to criteron-referenced A level grades in 1987, the introduction of GCSEs in 1989 and Gove/Morgan's changes around 2017.

If you regard pre-1944 education as a lost world, the rate of change in grading since 1989 has actually been lower than at any time in living memory: there has been the introduction of Astar and, er, that's it, in 25 years. A Levels, in particular, are completely incomparable before and after 1987 (up until that point there were fixed proportions of entrants who got each grade, 10 % A, 15 % B, 10 % C, 15 % D, 20 % E) and a pre-1987 A Level is a very different proposition to a post-1987 one.

At each of these point, grading was changed violently, and yet the world continued to turn. There was less transparency (how many people who took A Levels in the 1970s or 1980s knew how grades were set?) but those that needed to know knew. There's been something approaching complete stability since 2000, so that there's going to be some change now is not the end of the world people are making out.

but those that needed to know knew

How on earth can you claim that? How do you know that there weren't people out there rejected from college courses when they would have been accepted in previous years? Or people rejected from jobs because the person sifting CVs didn't understand the system? People mistakenly thinking that one grade was better than another without taking exam year into account?

How do you know that there weren't people out there rejected from college courses when they would have been accepted in previous years?

Most courses fill target numbers, and they do that by progressively opening up the window until the course is full.

If there is a sudden burst of grade deflation, as happened at A Level maths a few years ago, several things happen. Firstly, you start accepting your firms even if they didn't make their offer. Secondly, you start accepting your insurance offers even if they didn't make their offer (there are reason, which I can't offhand recall, why that is harder to do in the process). Thirdly, you go into clearing. There was a problem a few years ago where the RG universities under-recruited because going into clearing was seen as the mark of Cain, and no-one was willing to blink first. No-one is ever going there again, given the financial devastation it caused, and now pretty well everywhere other than Oxbridge, UCL and Imperial announces up front that they will clear.

So if there were system-wide drop in grades by a whole grade in every subject, there would be some turbulence on Wednesday evening and some exciting phone calls on Thursday morning, but matters would settle very quickly.

Or are you suggesting that the entire college entrance process ground to a halt in 1989 because no-one understood these new-fangled GCSEs? That university admission stopped dead in 1987, and again in 2000 because of the substantial changes in A Level grading?

Alternatively, if your contention is that small numbers being inconvenienced for a few days is unacceptable, what's your answer? That grading has to remain directly comparable by published norms from year to year? How?

One way we can do that is going back to norm-referenced grades, which we all know are simplistic nonsense. Look up what proportion of the population got School Certificate Matriculation in 1922 and fix GCSE A at that level, thus making qualifications "comparable" between children and their great grandparents.

Alternatively, we have to keep syllabuses the same indefinitely and mark against fixed criteria. That will see long term grade inflation as teaching improves (it's immeasurably better than a generation ago) and more children are raised in graduate households because of improving takeup amongst their parents' generation (which is what has happened to GCSE).

So what you're saying name is that colleges simply muddled through to fill their courses and worked by their target numbers rather than grades? My sixth form doesn't work that way, if people don't meet the entry requirements we have smaller classes, people could certainly be disadvantaged.

Your scenario of a few people being disadvantaged for a few days until the numbers sorted themselves out completely ignores the fact that that would only work for the current cohort being compared against each other.

Our current sixth form entry requirement for maths is an A. Experience tells us that a student with an A has a good chance of success at A-level. With the new grading, we may set our entry requirement at a 7, but later realise that because the new qualification is harder, anyone getting a 6 might actually be able to cope. But in the early years, those with a 6 would have that door closed to them because we didn't know.

You can say it will be fine all you like, but the truth is, experience of teaching new qualifications is incredibly valuable, and the transition years will be problematic and mistakes will be made.

So what's your answer? That there should never be any changes? That brave volunteers should offer to take the new course to provide experience for others? Who's going to sign up for that?

The 16+ pilot doesn't teach us much. Sixth form colleges learned nothing from it, because the students were awarded O Levels and CSEs indistinguishable from the prevailing qualifications, and the grades were explicitly normed to existing qualifications by two boards. The numbers taking the pilot were very small, and there would be no way to tell from an application who they were anyway (I just wrote "O Level Chemistry, Grade A" on by UCCA form). The people teaching it learnt how to deliver the new syllabus, but consumers of the qualifications learnt nothing, and the eventual GCSE papers were structured very differently to the pilot anyway.

How do you think people coped in 1989? Why is this any different?

People coping isn't the same as it being fine.

I'm not saying I have the solution, but admitting that it's going to be shit for those in the transition years is at least being honest.

Trying to make it less shit for those in the transition years by ensuring that the new qualifications are not rushed in and badly designed should be an absolute priority. That is not happening here.

To add, wholesale changes to the curriculum should be gradually introduced. The powers that be realised (quite late on) that they can't expect students who sat the old 'easier' GCSEs to cope with the new harder maths A-level, so they have put back the maths A-level by a year.

Why are they expecting children to sit the new harder GCSEs who went through the old easier KS3 curriculum, and the old easier primary curriculum? There's no joined up thinking.

Trying to make it less shit for those in the transition years by ensuring that the new qualifications are not rushed in and badly designed should be an absolute priority.

I don't think anyone would argue with that.

Why are they expecting children to sit the new harder GCSEs who went through the old easier KS3 curriculum

How far do you want to take that back? Should there be a ten year lead time on changes to assessment at 16 so that KS1 can be appropriately rejigged?

Anyway, haven't the boards promised equivalent outcomes, which is a posh name for norm referencing, so the grades will be awarded in roughly the same proportions anyway?

Maths teacher here. The amount of hours two of my colleagues have put in over the last three months in rewriting our schemes of work and now they can't trust the text books or assessment materials is just really shit. That sentence makes no sense grammatically but it is half term and my brain is fried. Every single maths teacher I know saw this coming.

Anyway, haven't the boards promised equivalent outcomes, which is a posh name for norm referencing, so the grades will be awarded in roughly the same proportions anyway?

No. Not exactly. We are going from 8 grades to 9. They have said that the proportion of students getting a C+ will be matched with the proportion getting a 4+, and A-A* will match 7,8,9.
This would be comforting if the pass grade was set at a 4, but it isn't. It's a 5. It's as yet unclear whether the 5 will be the required grade to avoid compulsory resits in Y12/13.

Trying to predict whether a student will get a 4 or a 5 is going to be impossible very tricky. I suspect the grade boundaries for a 5 when it comes to the actual exams will be decided by politics and publicly acceptable pass rates. League table positions and jobs will depend on this decision.

Should there be a ten year lead time on changes to assessment at 16 so that KS1 can be appropriately rejigged?

Yes. In an ideal world.

What's going to happen is that the grade boundaries are going to be set appallingly low because this first cohort will be poorly-prepared. Subsequent years will be better and better prepared, as teachers gain more experience of the new GCSE, but also the kids are better prepared due to having more years of the tougher curriculum.

What to do? Have the pass rates skyrocket amid claims of dumbing down? Or to gradually increase the grade boundaries year on year so that the proportions of students remain roughly comparable (but increasing enough that the government can claim an increase in standards), so that a student getting a 7 in the first year of sitting is actually much worse at maths than someone getting a 7 ten years down the line?

So it isn't just about grade deflation or those wanting to do A Levels but a whole category of children looking to enrol on virtually any vocational or training course

But it's entirely up to those courses whom they accept.

Suppose, hypothetically, it all goes pear-shaped and a massive proportion of the cohort who would have got into those courses in year X don't get in in year X+1. Are those colleges going to strike a high moral tone, make most of their staff redundant and sell their buildings?

Perhaps they are, and the suicidal ethical stances of the FE sector will put HE to shame.

But there have been periodic fluctuations in grade boundaries for A Level and universities respond pragmatically by issuing acceptances to people who missed their offers. I don't really see why FE colleges can't do exactly the same thing.

My school runs maths and English gcse resits in the same timetable block. Students who fail both maths and English cannot enter our sixth form.

So when the grade boundaries for the 5 are decided, and when the government decides whether you need a 4 or 5 before having to resit, they will be deciding not just which courses a student can enrol on, but whether they can enter our sixth form at all.

I teach a girl who failed both maths and English last year and was rejected from the sixth form. A remark showed that she had actually passed English, it was an exam board balls-up. She entered sixth form late and has been playing catch-up ever since.

Sorry, posted too soon. The point with my girl being rejected from sixth form was that English marking was appalling last year. Lots of schools had entire cohorts of scripts sent off for remarking.

And we still didn't lower our entry requirements of a pass in maths or English. This girl was no doubt only one of many affected.

And it's not just FE and HE. What about job applications? If we set the required standard in maths as 4, it would be nice to know that the 19 and 24 year olds applying had a comparable skill set with the same grade. And not that the 24 year old was essentially an equivalent of a 5 in the same year the 19 year old sat their gcses and might not have the skills we need.

DD is in year nine and Maths is her weakest subject. We were hoping she could work on it over the Summer, and use the CGP books as they have already published them for the new qualification.

Presumably they will all now have to be rewritten. Could anyone advise resources/particular areas of Maths DD could look at over the Summer?

We have access to My Maths and DD would have been looking at B-C in old money, and would like to be moving up to the new equivalent of A-B.

If we set the required standard in maths as 4, it would be nice to know that the 19 and 24 year olds applying had a comparable skill set with the same grade.

Could you point us to any time in the past fifty years when grades were stable over a five to ten year period?

Even leaving aside the issue that what someone got a GCSE at 16 doesn't telll you a hell of a lot about their maths abilities at 24 anyway. Students who didn't take A Level arrive at university having forgotten a hell of a lot over two years, never mind eight.

ian

At no point has it stayed completely stable over a 5-10 year period. But it's not anything like as unstable as it would be if the first couple of cohorts were not properly prepared.

I'm not talking about a job that requires very specific maths skills. It requires basic functional skills that you would think wouldn't be lost in candidates with a good GCSE pass.

So because GCSE grade boundaries haven't been completely consistent since forever, it's ok to rush through some massive changes?

Of course not. There's no justifying what they are doing.

Did anyone see this related article: www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11621191/Exam-boards-ordered-to-dumb-down-GCSE-maths.html?

There are 2 example questions of the 'perceived as too difficult' type.

Am I right in thinking that these questions are not difficult at all, as in the maths required to do them is fairly straight forward?

Would any GCSE maths teachers care to comment?