Does anyone know grade boundaries for 9-1 ?

[livvvvvv]

As the title says pretty much.

Maths don't seem to know at all what the grade boundaries are, but English seem to be certain.

They've just done their mock and my DS got 62/80 which they say is grade 6, and in their recent Shakespeare assessment he achieved 29/34 which was one mark off grade 8.
Do they sound about right, or does nobody know at all what the boundaries are?

No-one knows at all. Anyone who says they do is making it up. The boundaries will not be set until after the exams have been taken and marked.

Schools currently guess using previous years' boundaries. That's out the window now.

As above. Grade boundaries are set by the exam boards after the exam has been marked. Schools use last year's boundaries to assess mocks etc, but this year we are all just pissing in the wind. The English dept sound as though they've made something up so that they can do tracking, and are claiming to therefore know what they are doing when they don't, and the maths dept are being a bit more honest!

I'm an English teacher. Been teaching new specification for a year. Best we have is an educated guess, but that really is all it is - a guess. Sorry!

I'm not sure the grade boundaries for the 2016 exams are available yet, let alone the 2017 ones.

Pearson / Edexcel have just released a Step/9-1 grade conversion for their own KS3 assessments in maths.
Whilst they seem to fit some groups / levels, for others the results seem very low.
As far as KS4 is concerned, nobody really knows. There are lots of guesses...
And I'm thinking that whatever happens next year will be adjusted the year after.

Isn't the basis of the new marking criteria the bell curve, based on only a set percentage of pupils attaining each grade. so even if they publish grade boundaries they would be wrong.

The English department are making it up. A consultation has just closed and responses are being reviewed about how many grade 9s will be awarded for each subject. If this is lowered, as it may be, for maths and English, then this would also lower the number of grade 8s awarded (and increase any grade boundary).

So any grade boundaries that English have come up with, as well as being a rough guess, are also based on info that may yet change.

I'm not sure the grade boundaries for the 2016 exams are available yet, let alone the 2017 ones.

They're not. Will be being set round about now but not released til results days.

They may be working on the bell curve of that year group?

thedrsdocmartens what is the 'bell curve'?

Best we have is an educated guess, but that really is all it is - a guess. Sorry!

And that's all it ever has been and all it ever will be. The grade boundaries aren't set until after the papers have all been marked and then "normalised" or fiddled to produce the number of pupils in each grade that they want. So if the cohort get generally low grades across the board, it's decreed the exam was "hard" and grade boundaries adjusted accordingly.

Therefore, if the year end test or mock is the exact past paper, the mark scheme wouldn't be reliable as it's based on the cohort from a year or two ago who may have been generally better/worse than the current year. So it's only ever going to be a "guess". But an educated guess is better than not saying anything at all!

True, but we have far less of an educated guess this year. Previously the grade boundaries only moved a small amount year on year - with the exception of the one year they hoiked the English language gcse grade boundaries up by about 10 marks, which you may remember from the news. Apart from that year, teachers have been able to say with reasonable confidence that this mock paper response would be a b grade, this controlled assessment folder should be an a, etc. This year we have nothing to go on at all. I'm not sure we can justify calling it an educated guess actually. Just 'guess' seems more honest.