maths teachers - do you predict a grade 9?

[DorothyL]

Or do you think that's not possible?

[js10kjm]

To reiterate what others have said above (I'm a maths teacher), a lot of schools haven't even moved onto the 1-9 scale yet and are still operating in grades and the numbers have been purposefully made to not match up with the grades so that we don't try and equate them. As teachers we haven't been given very much information about the new grading system and schools have a lot of free reign to decide how they report grades back to parents (and because of academies it's not consistent across the country).

As a teacher, I'd be very wary of predicting a 9 as it's not very clear what that looks like at the moment. I imagine as we get more experience with the system we will feel more confident in predicting a 9 but until then I think teachers will play it safe.

[IguanaTail]

Plus in English, the difference in grade boundaries can be harder "sophisticated use ..." "Highly sophisticated..." Etc.

[JeanPadget]

Hello noble. I'm an English teacher and things are slightly better for us. We have three specimen papers on the AQA website for each component, and I recently attended a 3hr training session where the mark scheme for English was explained more clearly - obviously, an English mark scheme is more open to interpretation than a maths one. AQA had clearly done this because there was so much discontent about the materials and training previously available. I hope they now do the same for Literature. I don't really mind about not knowing where the grade boundaries are, but that's because I'm an experienced exam marker and I'm used to just putting numbers on scripts, not grades. Others were very upset about that, though.

No agonising about whether to go H or F here, as English and Literature are both untiered . The sample materials we were shown for one English paper had a Dickens extract; pre 19th century non-fiction will always appear and it will not have been seen by the candidates in advance. Those who used to get E / F / G will simply not be able to access the paper, but heigh-ho, Mr Gove said it had to be one exam for all. What with that, and the 25% SPaG marks (which I actually agree with, as things had got too slack), the English and Literature GCSE results are going to be below the floor in 2017.

[DorothyL]

Yes I did get it but it's nothing I can influence I meant.

[noblegiraffe]

I just told you, scrap the league tables!

Thing is, people don't want teaching to the test, but they do want to know the outcome of the test. They can't have it both ways.

[DorothyL]

I know noble but I wish there was a way to stop it!

[PirateSmile]

Is this really so difficult to grasp? Grade 9 is exceptional. Grade 1 is atrocious. Grades 4/5 are somewhere in the middle.
I can completely understand why the grading has to be changed when you consider how many pupils were achieving A and A*.

[noblegiraffe]

We'll teach to this test too, once we know what it looks like. If you don't want teaching to the test, don't put the results of the test in a public table and use it to rank schools.

[DorothyL]

I'm a bit torn on this, on the one hand I do think it's bad that teachers and pupils don't know what to expect, on the other hand the teaching to the test in the UK has been ridiculous. So many cases of not really teaching the subject, but just what is necessary to fit into the markscheme.

I don't know what the answer is though.

[IguanaTail]

I don't imagine other countries would put up with this kind of rubbish, I really don't.

[noblegiraffe]

You imply its a bad thing its rushed through.

I'm stating outright it's a bad thing it's rushed through. The new GCSE has far more content in it than the old GCSE. To try to get through it all, my school and a lot of other schools started teaching what we knew of it in Y9. We had specifications which said things like 'Venn diagrams' on it, but no examples of what they actually wanted us to teach. We had sample assessment materials (example exam papers) that were ridiculously hard. In January 2015, after some wrangling by the exam boards over who had the easiest assessment materials, Ofqual were forced to intervene. They got some kids to sit the assessment materials and realised that they were so hard the grade boundaries would be on the floor. At Easter it was announced they were scrapping the assessment materials. New assessment materials were not approved until July 2015 just before we broke up for the summer. Ofqual said this wasn't a problem. The exam boards had rushed publication of textbooks all of which were rendered obsolete by the scrapping of the SAMs because they were pitched at a too-hard exam.

We are now in February of Y10. We have only got a vague idea of what the exams will look like. We have no textbooks. We have no idea of what standard will be required for a pass. We have no idea of grade boundaries. We have to decide whether to enter borderline students for higher or foundation without a clue of which will be better for them. Our kids will be sitting mock exams and they will ask what grade that score will give them and we have no idea. Will they pass? Who needs intervention? Can they apply for sixth form? Don't know, don't know, don't know.

The government could have taken things slowly. They could have piloted the new GCSEs. They could have had a year were some kids sat both exams so that we would have a benchmark to work from - an exam with grade boundaries that we could use to assess our kids. The exam boards could have written decent textbooks. It's clear from the obsolete textbooks that even though they were working to the same spec from the DfE that they have all interpreted the spec in very different ways, meaning that teachers have too, and we don't have clear guidance. I know I'm going to have to go back and reteach things in Y11 which weren't clear earlier on.

I believe the faster it is put through the more children it will help. Dragging it out will leave more children in the twilight zone of a useless GCSE.

Better that they had an old GCSE which was well understood than this fucking farce.

[IguanaTail]

Because the standard changing nearly every year means it's impossible to know what standard the student is at.

Imagine a driving test.

In 2010 you only have to start the car and drive forwards, reverse and go round the roundabout and 4 minor faults are tolerated. You can have a retest if you need it.

In 2011 you have to do the same test and also park it and also parallel park and also navigate your way round Milton Keynes but 2 faults are permitted. You are allowed to have a retest if you need it.

In 2012 you have to be able to do the same, still with 2 faults are tolerated. You can still have a retest. But this time, once the test was done, the decision was made that only one mistake would be tolerated and so 1000s suddenly failed, even though last year they would have passed.

In 2013 you have to be able to do the same test but with one hand tied behind your back. You are allowed a retest.

In 2014 you have to build the car before you drive it, and you aren't allowed a re-test. If you fail then you have to take the bus.

Does that sound remotely fair?

[Bolognese]

titchy Why do grades have to mean exactly the same every year. People can cope with relative difference, the world changes every year, so what?

"A grade 4 won't be enough to get you onto a Level 3 course. But it is now." That's a good thing, standards are being pushed higher

"what grade do you think employers will regard as meaning a job applicant has a reasonable level of English?" They will do exactly as they do now, ask for a grade 4 (or 5 it doesn't matter), they when it come to the interview they will make a judgement based on their CV or ability to speak English. Its blatantly obvious. DUh!

[Bolognese]

noble I did read the guardian article, earlier today. Also got my DS in Y9 to do the grade 9 test paper someone posted.

But the guardian article doesn't have any actually concrete facts about why its a mess, the comparison with decimalisation is not a very good one, it just doesn't affect the whole county all in one go.

You imply its a bad thing its rushed through. I believe the faster it is put through the more children it will help. Dragging it out will leave more children in the twilight zone of a useless GCSE.

I imagine most adults can cope with a system that isn't a direct conversion.
I also imagine parents with cope with comparing schools, as they are all being changed to the same system. Why do you need historic comparisons? How the figures are calculated is irrelevant to almost everyone but those who want to complain.

So what exactly is the problem? I am still unclear!

[titchy]

Because bolognese a 4 in 2017 won't be the same as a 4 in 2018 or 2019 or 2020. Although a 2017 grade 4 will equal a 2016 C.

Because a grade 4 won't be enough to get you onto a Level 3 course. But it is now...

So what grade do you think employers will regard as meaning a job applicant has a reasonable level of English? Grade 4? 5?

[noblegiraffe]

You need to read the Guardian article linked to a few posts back, Bolognese. The thing is an utter mess.

And if you don't get why teachers are against something which is a complete rushed-through poorly thought-out untested shambles, detrimental to the guinea-pig kids who are going through it, then there's no getting through to you.

It may deliver in a few years time. That would be an appropriate time to introduce it. Not to meet a political deadline.

[t875]

Following x

[Bolognese]

lol noble, nice bait and switch. That completely avoids the question I was posing and the point I was making. Let me spell it out for you: It doesn't mater if the grade boundaries are complicated for the 'public' or businesses to understand. They dont need to. What matters is that they can discriminate between students who can read and write at one end and students with a good education based on a global comparison.

To that end the new system seems to me like it will quite simply deliver. I just dont get why teachers are so against a system that is dealing with grade inflation, allowing high achieving children to show how well they are doing and point out those kids that really need more help post GCSE.

[noblegiraffe]

No, a 5 will count as a pass for the league tables, a 4 will count as a pass for funding requirements for 6th form, but only for the first couple of years, at which point a 5 will count as a pass for both the league tables and sixth form funding requirements.

What employers decide will count is up to them. If they are only interested in candidates with a specific level of numeracy, then they would count a C grade and a 4 as acceptable. If they want to hold younger candidates to higher standards than older candidates, then they would accept a C or a 5.

Confusingly, for the first year of the new GCSE, the grade 5 boundary will be set by numerical interpolation between grades 4 and 7, whose boundaries will be set by the proportion of students who get a grade C or above and a grade A or above this year. In future years this will be aligned to some nebulous international standard, and the grade boundaries for a 4 and a 7 will be set by using a national reference test sampling the performance of a random group of Y11s the year they sit the GCSE. Therefore it's unclear how the grade '5' and the notion of a pass or fail will actually represent any sort of consistent standard.

What is fairly clear is that the 'pass rate' as referred to by the league tables will drop by an estimated 23% in 2017, thus for practical reasons people who recruit mainly from this cohort will either accept the government notion of a 'pass' as a 5 and severely restrict their candidate pool, or set their own acceptable standard, aligned to the previous 'pass' standard which is a 4.

What's absolutely clear is that people like Bolognese will not understand the nuance and simply say '5 is a pass' and students in the first cohorts to sit these exams will be severely disadvantaged in future years.

[Bolognese]

So its even simpler a 5 is a pass, why would no one be able to understand that?

[noblegiraffe]

No, a 4 isn't a pass, a 5 is a pass, except when it comes to sixth form entry requirements and resit funding formulas for the next couple of years in which case a 4 is a pass because the country can't afford to have as many people not passing as would not pass if a 5 were a pass for everything. Only a 5 will count as a pass for the league tables, a 4 will not be a pass. In the future the 5 will be the pass in terms of being an actual pass, a pass for the league tables and a pass for sixth form entry and resit requirements, and a 4 will not be a pass for anything. The date for the switchover of passes in terms of sixth form entry and resit requirements has not yet been decided.

Simples.

[Bolognese]

I dunno, It sooo hard. A four is a low pass and a five is a good pass. Sod it Dave I cant cope with running a business I think I will give up and pretend I am stuoopid! Its not as if every country in the world has different systems of measuring ability but I would never employ any of them because I am dumb and cant understand what two numbers means.

[CanvasAwning]

From today's Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/16/gcse-changes-exam-grades

[IguanaTail]

I agree with what you say. I can't imagine future employers being able to easily work it out

"oh hang on that was 2012 English when they dropped all the grades by one...that candidate was the first through in 2017 doing the new maths paper so that's a 5 and that's the threshold isn't it, oh but of course it's a grade higher so that candidate has a "B" really in old money, but more like a "C" now on the new scale. Sod it, Dave, just get them in and we will do our own tests on them!"