Will new GCSE's bring a halt to Social Mobility?

[BlueBelle123]

This is something that I have been pondering - if the new grade 9 becomes the entry requirement for the top universities and competitive courses and if the vast majority are awarded to private school pupils then pupils at the local comp. are going to find it almost impossible to access these places. A lot of Ifs I know but it does make you think - or am I talking complete rubbish, love to hear what you think?

Ah yes memorise the mark scheme as against ^learn about the subject.

GCSEs are taken by all kids
A levels are taken by about half of kids
Degrees are taken by about a third of kids
Top200 degrees are taken by about 1/20th of kids

"The problem is that GCSEs wiibe the only public examinations people will usually have taken before applying to uni"

So what? Do you think that before 2001 university admission was done by slicing chickens open and looking to see where the entrails fell?

Again, we're back to the strange MN-only world where getting a university offer is done by something other than looking at the predicted grades and returning a response from central admissions, and the Daily Mail world in which students routinely get all A* and it's not possible to tell them apart.

If the small number of universities that want or need more complex admission criteria need more resolution from exams taken at 16, that's their problem; a public exam system set up to provide baseline qualifications for more than half a million students per year should not concern itself with the detailed admission requirements for a small number of niche university courses which, of course, have wildly different requirements anyway. I suspect, as disqimplies, that they don't want this anyway: they've been setting pre-tests (mostly sat yesterday, as it happens) for many years, even though they also have ASes to go on, so appear quite able to row their own boat.

I think particularly for subjects like English or History and even MFLs talented pupils may actually get lower marks than they deserve through inconsistent marking and not simplifying down their answers sufficiently to fit the tick box or key word scan

Evidence for that claim would be nice; I mean, evidence other than school teachers claiming it's true. It would surely not be hard to get the evidence: a bright child, predicted A*, gets a lower mark than expected, the school asks for the script, and one or two qualified people can explain why the work was "too good" for the marking.

On the debt thread I coordinate are / were several teachers who topped up their wages by doing GCSE marking
those who think that the marking is inconsistent and unmoderated should have a go at doing it

*So what? Do you think that before 2001 university admission was done by slicing chickens open and looking to see where the entrails fell?

Again, we're back to the strange MN-only world where getting a university offer is done by something other than looking at the predicted grades *

Wow a bit aggressive their Ricardian! Since over 50% of predicted grades turn out to be wrong even WITH the benefit of AS results, god knows what will happen to them without.All the more reason for a GCSE which can differentiate

Why brioche? If the A level prediction is wrong, and the offer isn't met, the university place doesn't get awarded. Why would having more differentiation at GCSE level change that?

..and if ,based on erroneous predictions an offer is not made??

that is what clearing is for
no system based on predictions of any sort will ever be perfect
nor will one based on actual grades due to subconscious bias (see the chat about name bling recruitment)

diverting GCSEs into being a tool for selective universities is a disservice to the 90% of kids who are not on that track

To turn things round, what disadvatage is their of having more differentiation at GCSE?

that is what clearing is for

If that course goes into clearing!! Places like Durham don't go to clearing always.

diverting GCSEs into being a tool for selective universities is a disservice to the 90% of kids who are not on that track
Why? how does it harm them?

To turn things round, what disadvatage is their of having more differentiation at GCSE?

It would be meaningless.

Take a subject such as maths. Set a paper on GCSE topics such that 90%+ gets you an A*. Introduce a new grade for 95%+.

The students who got over 95% won't necessarily do better when studying higher level material than those who got 90-94%. (Indeed the opposite can often be true.) The top grade will reward those who are accurate and who have been trained to be accurate. It will not test who understands concepts at a much deeper level.

Suppose you then try to make sure that the last 5% is only obtainable by those who do understand the material at a deeper level. This still won't work, as top selective schools have the resources and the student body to teach deeper, so their students are more familiar with deeper level questions. The new top grade will still not test for innate ability, intelligence and deep thinking. TBH there's a limit on how deep you can go with the current GCSE material anyhow.

Now look at this from the perspective of Cambridge or similar maths departments. Even if you award your new grade to the top 1% of maths entries, almost all their mathematics applicants will still have the new GCSE grade. It still won't help us distinguish between mathematics applicants - we will still use pre-tests, interviews and post-interview exams to test on higher level material.

If universities thought more differentiation at GCSE would be useful they would have asked for it. But they are not responsible for the new 9 grades.

But that still isn't an answer as to what the harm is?

as far as maths goes, Won't it just be like incorporating the further maths level 2 (sorry can't remember its official title) The A^ does separate them a bit (well at our school anyhow-can't speak for others)

The harm is implicit above: people who don't get the top grade don't carry on with the subject, not realising that the difference between top grade and next to top grade is meaningless for their ability to carry on with higher level study.

In particular, the new top grade harms diversity as students from non-selective schools are pushed even more away from subjects such as Further Maths into soft subjects which won't get them into top universities.

Moreover, risk averse students from all backgrounds are put off taking the A level by not getting the top grade. Many females are risk averse so your new grade pushes the percentage taking e.g. Further Maths or Physics even more down than it currently is.

Currently the extension maths GCSEs don't separate according to ability for higher level study; performance is strongly correlated with teaching time. The existence of extension maths GCSEs puts off certain demographic groups from studying FM: students assume that if they haven't studied the extension GCSEs then they can't do FM.

Finally, no university department currently uses grades in Stats/Further Maths/Additional Maths GCSE in any way for their selection because of above concerns: grades reflect the teaching time and quality of year 11 teaching as much as students innate ability. It would be ludicrous to rule out a student for not having a top grade extension maths GCSE when their sixth form tutors report they are scoring 90%+ on mock A level papers.

GCSEs are simply not a good indicator (on their own) of students performance at higher level. At most they can only be used as a small percentage of selection. Even those places which select for interview partly on GCSEs don't tend to distinguish between e.g. 6 A stars versus 10 A stars.