GCSE pass rate to drop by 23% in 2017

[noblegiraffe]

Latest anaylsis suggests that the GCSE pass rate for the new GCSEs could drop by 23% to about 35%.
schoolsweek.co.uk/gcse-pass-rate-could-drop-23-under-new-reforms/

This is when the good pass rate is set at a '5' which is a high C/low B.

The government has fudged it by saying that a '4' will count as pass for entry to sixth form, so any student who gets a 4 will not need to resit maths and English post-16; they'll only be screwed in later years when they try to apply for jobs alongside those who did have to resit till they got a 5.

I know the new performance measures will be 'Progress 8', but I don't know whether schools will still be publishing their headline A*-C inc Maths and English figures and if so, whether it would be the 4 or 5 that counts. Anyone else know?

Ive got a Yr10 dc and it's worrying. School don't seem to have a clue. Though they have increased maths lessons per week.

My top set year tens have loved Jekyll and Hyde - from set 3 on not so much the language is complex and the narrative very long winded.

There is a wealth of amazing literature out there and the ones chosen are not the best for all children - my year 11 class are a bottom set predicted F/G grades - they have struggled with Of Mice and Men!. The current year 10s will all sit the same exam and have to study the same narrow range of books that do not take in the idea that all kids are different.

@pieceofpurplesky

I'm confused then. Surely the great Victorian novel is supposed to be for the highers, not all teens?

They don't teach the entire maths curriculum to all teens. IIRC @ng once said that can be more granular than foundation v. higher e.g. some children might do the higher curriculum but only enough to get a grade B etc.

[Middling comp Y8 DD's English teacher recently told her and a few others to read Pride and Prejudice at home.]

Isn't it a terrible state of affairs that we have had teachers and parents on this thread all saying the same thing, that basically a fair education is going to become a rarity rather than the norm. I speak as a mum to children of different years and aspirations. Yet I fear for them both. I fear most when I hear that our children's educators are equally at a loss to understand and comprehend just what is expected.

I know they don't teach the entire maths curriculum to all teens, Pique, however given that trig without a calculator by memorising values is on the foundation paper, any kid who wants a decent shot at the new pass grade (so your average kid, not your top setter) will be dragged through it.

Previously, memorising these trig values was on further maths GCSE only. It wasn't even on A-level.

Pique under the new system all pupils sit the same exam and have to study the same text - so whether you are expected a Level 9 or a Level 1 you will study the same.

Some pupils will be fine but an awful lot will not.

In maths we are in the absolutely ridiculous situation of having to teach foundation kids to do trigonometry, without a calculator, by memorising the values of e.g. sin(60).

Back in the bad days of O Level and CSE my school offered O Level maths, CSE maths and CSE commercial arythmetic.

The reasoning was that CSE commercial arithmetic was what employers wanted not maths. I think to some extent that is true (obviously not for engineers or scientists) and a numeracy / arithmetic qualification would be a valid option.

Are you really saying that schools, presumably state ones at least, should deny a great book to children who can cope with it because some other children can't?

I don't teach English, but some of my GCSE students have a reading age of 8, the best way for them to improve (IMHO) is for them to enjoy reading and to do as much as possible, but are they going to do that when they cannot read every third word? Or if they can sound it out do not understand it?

I have just been to a year 8 parents' evening, and, perhaps strangely given opinions on here, the teachers seemed rather enthusiastic about the new curriculum, particularly the French teacher who said she always thought the learning off by heart aspect of the old GCSE was ridiculous. The Maths teacher said that some of the maths was coming down from A Level, and that the questions would be more wordy. The English teacher said she liked the new books. This is in an ordinary comprehensive school.

@pieceofpurplesky,@sashh

Sound to me like we need to openly acknowledge that one size doesn't fit all for English Lit. and perhaps have two tiers.

I'm skating on thin ice with this subject, but back in my day it seemed to be more routine comprehension than arcane literary-guild analysis (which now reaches all the way down into KS2) and my best guess is that the universally accessible input effectively forced geekier ways to differentiate by outcome. If I ran the universe I'd push much of the literary analysis back to A-level and spend more time on children reading/comprehending lots of genres. Differentiate more by ability to comprehend the input, less by talk of authorial intent and so on.

@ng, "memorising these trig values was on further maths GCSE only "

Point taken. This is an aside, but are they supposed to be memorising decimals, or given your sin(60) example, knowing that special case is SQRT(3)/2 and perhaps not having to reduce the final answer to a decimal?

As a parent who's eldest did GCSEs this summer, I am already dreading DD2, currently y6, having to do the new style.

I'm old enough to have done O levels. What I really liked about GCSEs is the flexibility for different levels of ability to be taught appropriately but end up with the same qualification.

I don't like most of what I'm hearing about the new maths.
I don't like the restrictive set of books for English lit.
I wasn't that keen on the current GCSE English language so if they make that even more language analytical then that will be of even less value to employers.

If they do something about the MFL system of learning stuff by rote though than that will definitely be an improvement.

(And I agree with a PP who said the amount of grammar y6 are having to do is over the top. I get that knowing what a conjunction is, is useful, but subordinating conjunctions & adverbial phrases? Is that really essential knowledge for an 11yo?)

Y9 here and find it very scary.

We're having a GCSE meeting at school next week when i'm hoping we find out more though in the options booklet, some of the departments don't even commit to which exam board yet.

Options have to be in by the end of the month and my DD has still only narrowed one block down to 3 possible subjects.

I think Rhoda, there are schools who are happily embracing the new curriculum and especially in schools where there are a high number of high achievers. It will suit the majority of their children. The difficulty will be with the lower middle to low achievers and at schools who struggle to get larger numbers through Maths and English GCSE at C or above.

The government is compiling the league tables on the 4-9 grades the children get so, (so The Sunday Times article said) so if noblegiraffe is correct, the 4 is lower than the C we have now so more children could be OK. That could be good news for some. It also said the higher papers will be graded 4-9 and the lower tier papers will be 1-5. I would like to think there would be differentiation between what is taught at each level because, otherwise, what is the point? This surely would include different literature.

I think well managed schools will be fine, but we know loads of schools are not well managed and are poor at a number of things. The introduction of the new exams will be the latest in a long line of problems.

I think schools will do their best, and good schools will put as positive a spin on it all as they can to the parents & pupils (even if inwardly moaning, or moaning on here). No point the kids feeling they are beaten before they even start.

bojorojo Initially the same will get a 4 or above as get a C or above at the moment. The issue is that a year or 2 after introduction, the definition of a good enough pass is being raised to a 5. So all the current 'lower Cs' will have to retake. Plus those who get a 4 in the first year, won't have to retake, but will then go through life with a qualification considered 'not good enough'.

Yes tiggy The 'problem' with the new primary SATs is that the tests are coming in, but current y6 have only been following the new curriculum since y5. So basically all the grammar that is being introduced from y1/2 upwards has had to be crammed in to 2 years flat. DD2 is doing grammar that DD1 has never done.

I did think DD1 was a bit lacking in grammar knowledge, which did impact her MFL learning in secondary, but what DD2 is having to attempt is over the top, I think. I have to keep looking stuff up. I really can't see any 'value' in a lot of it.

Pique they are meant to memorise root3/2, the exact values, not a decimal. I just can't see any value in that at all. If you haven't got a calculator and you're trying to do basic trig then knowing the answer is root3/2 is still no help because you would need a calculator to work out what that is!
The sort of advanced trig where knowing those values off by heart might come in handy is miles ahead of where those foundation kids are. Its inclusion is baffling.

Wasn't the first KS2 SPaG SAT in 2013? Y8 DD had hers in 2014 and the L3-L5 seemed fair enough, but although she passed quite comfortably I thought the L6 stuff was extremely irritating and mostly worthless.

So is the extra SPaG challenge essentially because they're accomodating L6 into the universal nuSAT? Or are they now expecting significantly more from everyone?

The government is compiling the league tables on the 4-9 grades the children get so, (so The Sunday Times article said) so if noblegiraffe is correct, the 4 is lower than the C we have now so more children could be OK

Did the Times actually say the league tables would be 4-9? I haven't got a subscription but that would be interesting because that is using a different definition of pass to the official one referred to in the analysis in the OP. That would cause confusion!

4 isn't lower than a C, any student who would have got a C or higher should get a 4 or higher.

Any student who would have got an A or higher should get a 7 or higher. The proportions will be the same for the first year.

@ng, "then knowing the answer is root3/2 is still no help because you would need a calculator to work out what that is!"

OK so it's silly then. DD is maths-whizzy and I can see value in her knowing about the special case triangles in order to answer a question e.g. involving some parallelogram where you have to spot the triangle to figure out whatever, but I'm against questions that need children of any ability to remember that sin(60) = 0.866

I thought my grammar was good, given that I learnt a lot in taking Latin & Greek to A levels in the dim and distant past, but I'm stumped by a lot of the grammar that my y6 is covering. And no, I can't see the point of whole swathes of it.

Glad it's not just me then AbsoluteBeginners!

Nor just me!

Thank you Noble for the reassurance that DS's A level maths is more difficult than my O level (shaky grade 6, second attempt). I was worried, especially when a Latin teacher saw my O level paper and reckoned it would have challenged their AS students (and this at a v academic selective school).