iGCSE / Edexcel/ AQA

[gillybeanz]

Are these harder, considered more rigorous than normal GCSE?
Can anyone say how they are different.
Am panicking as whilst not choosing options until next year, have one who isn't the brightest.

Also, what's the difference between IGCSE, Edexcel, or AQA.

I know that our school at least tries to choose the examination board that most fits the profile of our cohort- for example, many of our kids have quite low literacy skills, so the maths depqrtment goes for the board that has the least "wordy" GCSE.

So there really are significant differences in the way the different boards present the questions- I don't think there is a difference in the difficulty of the content.

I think private schools have been choosing iGCSEs for two reasons

a) linear (and no/few books/sheets permitted)
b) no government fiddling

Only the second of these will continue to apply as the changes work through, but it seems reason enough.

Some brilliant responses and thank you.

Bert That sounds logical, and will probably be the best for that cohort.
Dd school has all abilities from very bright A* pupils to those in comp ed like my dd.

Does anyone know what will happen to those not very good at science if the school doesn't offer Btec?
Will they be likely to include a Btec for such subjects or just pull the kids up as much as they can?

Different sets can do different boards at our school. It is hugely complicated!

At large local secondaries you have the capacity for high sets to do GCSE's & lower sets to do Btec/other qualifications.

At tiny specialist schools such as the ones our children attend it's often simply not viable for this to happen.

Really? I would have thought that in a small school it would be easier to tailor the system to the child?

When my dd was in Year 7 Bert there were 18 children in the year. She's in Year 10 now & numbers have risen to about 35 but there are some very bright children in the year. About 8 have chosen triple science. The remainder are doing GCSE double. It's not viable to run a Btec class for just a couple of the very lowest ability for whom GCSE may be hard to access.

I would have thought that if they could run something appropriate for the high ability kids they should be able to do something for the lower ability ones.

There are two sets for subjects like science & maths. To run Btec would require 3 sets & that's just not possible.

And to be fair most of the comps round my way don't run Btec either. Just one does out of the 4 local secondaries close to me.

You know what I am going to say.

Having double not triple science will not disadvantage the brightest. Having no science qualification will disadvantage this lower ability. So still have two sets, but double science and BTec.

You would still need 3 sets though. (Triple science is an option column not a set). Either that or have 32 children in top set GCSE science & 2/3 in bottom set Btec science.

Of course my dds school is different to Billy's dds school (they are just similar in intake & how they are funded)

Alexander

Wow, 18 in the year. I thought dd year of 31 was small.
it's similar though as most years can have an intake and children leaving so you're never sure at y7 how many will be in the year when it comes to y10.
There are some exceptionally bright children too, the average was almost 90% for the end of year language test last year.

There are no chances of Btec, but likewise not all comps offer them in our area neither.

We just had a chat to get some things into perspective like the fact that because the language average was so high, her below average scores in the late 70's early 80's was still considered as good.

So with no more coursework being offered does this mean that all GCSE's/ IGCSE's will be just exam based, or will it still be variable.

I'm thinking about subjects like Art and Drama, surely they will still have controlled assessments, coursework, or performance elements.

I meant to add, that atm you can't take triple science at GCSE at dd school.
However, if you choose double you are allowed to take separate science subjects at A level.
I'm just hoping that if double science is compulsory when she takes her options then they'll have 2 tiers and sets, surely this is reasonable to expect.

Triple is new this year at dd's school. What happens is that the year are split into two sets & all the common content of the course is taught to everyone in the two sets over 3 double lessons.

Those who have chosen triple then have an extra double & an extra single lesson to cover the extra modules in the triple course.

DD took triple science, but at her school it took up an option. Those taking double science could choose 4 other option, and those taking triple science chose 3 other options. It worked very well at her school and there were about 60 students taking triple science.