DfE Data Cruncher predicts number of students who will get straight 9s

[noblegiraffe]

His guess is.... 2

Not 2%,

2 kids in the whole country will get all 9s in their GCSEs.

So that's the new challenge for the MN boaster.

Ofqual reckon 0 kids will manage it. They clearly haven't met any MNetters' kids.

twitter.com/timleunig/status/845699774754017280

goodbye I'm retaking this GCSE at a college, and as someone with first hand experience that's not a teacher, you're talking rubbish.

Not really sure of your point Ryan.

goodbye you are providing an excellent example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Those science teachers who are assigning numerical grades for an internal science test for an exam that hasn't been sat by anyone yet and won't be for over a year are making it up. They don't have magical powers to see into the future, they don't have any special knowledge because they work at a grammar, they are licking their finger, sticking it into the air, trying to see which way the wind is blowing then assigning it a number and passing it off as accurate.

noble,

Would you share your guesses/estimates for the grade boundaries for the upcoming higher Edexcel maths exams, please?

But noble I don't really care. They're still telling me broadly where DD is in terms of attainment but I guess I'm in a better position than most as I can then compare her to my tester group of seven who all attended the same school and can confirm that way that she's doing ok, which is all I need. Obviously she might get ill or some other vagary of life may hit but for the moment the grades she's attaining - or 'attaining' if you prefer - confirm that she's fairly high in relation to a fairly high achieving cohort. I'm not bothered about attacking teachers who are very experienced, completely rational and who, unlike you, aren't dissolving in a lather of despair at every turn. Hopefully their calm self-confidence will transmit to the pupils, which can do no harm.

It's a shame that these very experienced, rational teachers can't come up with a way of transmitting to DC where they fall in the cohort without making stuff up.

I can't see that it matters if they use 9s - 4s or % or anything else which is easily intelligible to reasonably bright young people noble. All the measures have the same effect. You're just determined that everything is a problem with educational policy, all the time, and it colours your response to all issues.

I can't understand how Noble can put it any clearer goodbye there are no grade boundaries available as no one has sat an actual exam.

Until the full cohort sit the exam then even those of us who mark won't know how they will do. Those of us who are exam markers have no idea until results day of the grade boundaries as we don't see the full picture.

All we can do as teachers is use our experience of the OLD GCSEs but this doesn't really help as the specs and questioning styles are so different.

I have become very accurate at predictions with the old GCSE, but I wouldn't even know where to start with the new specs and no teacher will be able to for a few years

You really are a very odd mixture of aggression, dogmatism and touchiness, aren't you, goodbyestranger? So very quick to take offence, so very ready to give it!

I suppose if you had a kid who was working well into the year 12 syllabus you could safely predict a 9? Is this the coded message some posters are giving us about their dcs?

Cheers Bert :) Also, I don't need to use codes. If I want to say something I'll say it and if I don't I won't. I have a clever DD. Not a big deal. She's not the only clever DD on the block. There, will that do? Is it a problem?

cricketballs I take my lead from real life teachers and I fully understand we're on new territory but saying teachers don't know where to start is a bit weak, especially for the highest and lowest grades. noble is just one teacher among many and seems to be a finder of problems rather than a problem solver, as far as I can make out.

And Bert I really don't take offence unless it's a stalking thing, which is fair, to be fair.

Thinking about the original post, I don't mind 9s being rare. I have one child who is bright and very diligent. In the present system she would expect herself to get all A*s, and be crestfallen with any As, perish the thought about Bs! Being in a world where "an eight is great!" and she cherishes any 9s she might get won't kill her. It might even in a funny way take the pressure off.

A test designed to see how far any one can go has to be designed so that it pinpoints everyone's point of failure. I am sure the children will get used to this.

The problem is the implementation of all this.

Empress I agree. I think 9s take the pressure off too. I didn't want to be the first to say it!

I take my lead from real life teachers ops - must tell my HT/colleagues/students that I'm not a real teacher ...

I fully understand we're on new territory but saying teachers don't know where to start is a bit weak, especially for the highest and lowest grades

we don't know because no one knows Noble has tried countless ways to get you to understand this point as have other posters including myself.

cricketballs you know exactly what I mean. I happen to prefer the approach of the teachers I know in real life who I've known for a while because they've mostly taught all my DC. Simply because noble is a teacher doesn't mean noble is a better or more able teacher than the ones I know. I really don't need anything explained nor is my understanding wanting.

Is this the coded message some posters are giving us about their dcs?

Nope, the fairly straight-foward message is that the probability of child A getting a grade 9 can be quite high because their history, by various measures, is overwhelmingly (national) top few percent stuff.

Y9 DD is one of those and only has semi-formal targets not predictions as such, but if e.g. maths weren't informally predicting a 9 I would spit venom around low expectations. But maths are predicting that, because they know where she sits on the curve for performance in that subject at that age. The actual criteria, marks and thresholds to get the 9 are a bit of an aside.

I reckon English will informally predict an 8, which is fine because DD is (metaphorically) left-brained and the subject's waffly post-modern nature annoys her. I doubt she'll do worse than that because of her general intelligence and general purpose exam ability i.e. the new regime for those works in her favour.

Perhaps this nuGCSE stuff is much easier to assimilate if you are older and took norm-referenced O-levels?

The actual criteria, marks and thresholds to get the 9 are a bit of an aside.

Disagree entirely with this, as a parent and a teacher. Without published grade boundaries, or examples, you canny know that your DD is on track to achieve a 9 in maths. You can suggest that she is likely to achieve at the top end but how can you dismiss the criteria, marks and thresholds?

goodbye if your understanding is not wanting then how can you explain your earlier statement of "she's scoring 8s and 9s in her tests so it doesn't seem to wild and wacky to predict her 9s to aim for" when there is not one single person in the country who has any information about what a 8 or 9 is?

cricketballs I also said that it doesn't really matter what measure they use to differentiate between students. That cohort is a good cohort at our school. One can work backwards from that, or I can anyhow.

how can you dismiss the criteria, marks and thresholds?

I'm not dismissing whether lessons expose DD to every topic that may turn up in the exam, in fact it's my biggest concern given how her KS3 had to absorb some serious difficulties with staff shortages in some subjects. But given that I know roughly where DD will end up relative to the nation regardless of what's in the actual exams and whether 187 out of 240 is this year's grade 9.

Especially in maths and related subjects, where at the higher end of the curve the differences in outcomes then depend on knowledge-generalisation ability (general purpose puzzle-solving ability) and the majority of that comes from within.

At scale within-school and between-school differences account for something like 10-15% of differences in outcomes, and the rest is about the child's nature etc.

I don't agree that the new 9 grade will take pressure off. I would love to agree, but what I know up till now about society, expectations and human psychology contradict it. The child that is A* material will be dreaming of a 9, not an 8. Universities will prioritize those with 9s above 8s. People will be asking how many 9s you got. Schools will be publicizing their percentage of 9s. Etc, etc. Just wait and see.

Why can't teachers just get on with teaching a syllabus (with a bit extra when appropriate for the brightest) and tell parents / their students at what level they are at within their cohort. The results for an individual DC will depend on the teaching quality, DC's relative ability plus their personalities for coping with the exams.

Results won't be changed by a lot of heated discussion on the reliability of predicted grades. Whether predictions are accurate will not make an iota of difference to performance and results for a DC. IMO energy taken ranting about lack of data for predictions seems a waste of time.

The brilliant DCs will continue to be at the very top of their cohort. Those who miss out for 8 or 9s may be the ones who have worked hard but cannot apply problem solving so well to more difficult questions or are thrown by complicated text for questions or simply do not have a real flair for language. I am sure good teachers will know that many of their A* / A pupils fall in that group and therefore will need some luck to score higher grades.

But we coped in O-level days before 10 x A* wasn't percieved as a middle-class child's birthright. I think we'll be much better off with them dreaming of 9s, rather than expecting them.

Y9 DD is quite pragmatic about it all, but that is partly her character and comp-world where she can afford to drop some catches and still look relatively shiny.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out in more high-octane selective (girls) schools etc. I'm hoping there will be lots of melt-downs leading to less competition for DD