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

Some of the more absurd syllabi have been reworked to improve quality.
I think the new grading system looks fantastic.

So that students know where their real talents lie and can make good A-level choices.
So that exceptional students can be identified and given substantial opportunities appropriate to their abilities.

But they don't get their results till August after they've sat the exams. Bit late to be giving extra opportunities!

Are teachers currently unaware of who their exceptional students are simply because we use a letter system of grading? Or do they already know?

In August colleges will likely be accepting roughly the same numbers as they usually do

Students have already, in the main, made their college choices and course choices. Yes there will be some chopping and changing at the last minute, there always is, but the student who was put off geography at college X because they were asking for a 6 in maths and is now set on college Y to do something different is unlikely to switch back to college X and geography just because they do actually get a 6 in maths. Or they may not even notice that college X drops its entry requirements to a 5 because they get into college Y and this is now all they are focused on.
At least one head has blogged about a reduction in application numbers due to concerns over meeting entry requirements.

And this year it's just maths and English!

No of course it's not too late. First of all, if the system is working properly, a student should find out during the two year course where his/her talents lie - it shouldn't come as some huge surprise on results day. And enrichment opportunities should be built on throughout Y12 and Y13.

Your problem is that you cannot let go of the old system.

No, my problem is that this entire thing has been a shambles.

I don't know why Noble is getting a hard time here - definitely the case of shoot the messenger.
:)

The old system was a complete shambles. Many GCSE courses and the grades they attracted were, intellectually speaking, a scandal. Absurd. Unfit for purpose.

I do think the halfway house of this year is a particular issue.

So DS has chosen his A-levels. As his school chose a very pessimistic grading system for his mocks in English / Maths, he decided that he wasn't good enough at maths to take the A-level, despite having been predicted A-A* under the old system.

Yes, he may get an 8 in the summer, but by then his choices - based on pessimistic predictions - have already been fixed.

Equally, as I have said above, 6th form places tend to be offered on the basis of predicted grades. Where a school draws students from a very large range of schools, whereas in the past they had some handle on whether these predictions tended to be accurate, it will be some years before it is remotely reliable again. In the meantime, students perfectly capable of academic 6th forms will not have been offered places, while those who were not as good will not.

Bobo however shit the old system was, there is no excuse for how badly the change has been implemented. Truly, people should lose their jobs over this.

What's wrong with testing something to see if it works? There is no real urgency to change the system. I'm not saying change is bad or wrong, or even that these particular changes are bad or wrong, and I think it may be helpful to differentiate at the top level. But if the tests had been properly trialled and this year had been a year of testing and refining, GCSE students would have simply taken the same exams as those last year and would not have been any more disadvantaged than last year's students. Whereas with poorly constructed, rushed through changes you risk disadvantaging this year group.

Why on earth is it even necessary or desirable to differentiate between the clever and the exceptional at GCSE?

In addition to what's been said, some universities looked at AS levels and with those off the menu GCSE performance has more prominence. Or given the context of this thread they're like Cambridge and decide the only solution is to set their own entrance exams.

he decided that he wasn't good enough at maths to take the A-level

I think a huge number of DC had their confidence irrevocably knocked after the November mocks. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on A-level take-up, but it will be hard to untangle from the simultaneous introduction of the linear maths A-level so we'll never really know.

I think, by the way, it is entirely possible that the new system may, once embedded, be better for some (specifically some more academic students). It may actively disadvantage others. And the chaotic implementation advantages no-one at all, and may colour everyone's perception of the entire system for a lengthy period.

Fr example, it might have been an entirely good idea to base local taxation on a per capita rather than per property basis. However, since all anyone remembers about the poll tax is the riots and confusion around its implementation, no-one considers whether it was actually better than the rates that proceeded it or the council tax that rapidly replaced it,

I dunno. I think that the courage to ditch the old system deserves recognition. And changes to school systems are very hard to implement (our DC have lived through several in France, all highly controversial with teachers in the streets etc).

Yes, but real courage would be making sure your changes were robust, not the bull at a gate approach of blunderbussing it through.

I think that the courage to ditch the old system deserves recognition

And the idiocy of doing it within a couple of years, with changes being made right up till the exam overshadow this.

LOL. In France major national changes get announced mid-year for the following academic year!

Bobo, I remember the O-level / CSE to GCSE reform - in many ways a more radical change than the current one.

It was extensively trialled, brought in over a sensible time frame and there was plenty of training and consultation. I remember discussions with my teachers at the time, and they could absolutely see its advantages and worked hard to make it work. It is not necessarily the 'courage to ditch a system' but the tenacity to see that the new system is implemented well that is praiseworthy.

Let's remember that the only reason that DC are sitting the new exams this summer is because there was a General Election in 2015. Political reasons, not educational ones. Unforgiveable.

The same reasons so much money has been wasted on academisation. Political, not educational, reasons.

Bobo, but France, IIRC, has a much more 'command and control' centralised model of education. As that is not the system that England has, changes cannot be implemented in the same way.

In France major national changes get announced mid-year for the following academic year!

A major national change for this set of exams to be sat in 2 months was announced last week.

Completely in agreement with everything you say Bobo and I have DC in both of the guinea pig years. I don't accept that it's a shambles, I have most certainly been paying attention and I think the changes are all positive - for high achievers at least. I'm pleased that we have new exams and a new grading system, not concerned. These changes are overdue but I do think there are real issues at the lower end of the scale. That's not what the shouting on this thread is about however.

It was extensively trialled, brought in over a sensible time frame and there was plenty of training and consultation.

I understand that some DC even sat both GCSEs and O-levels so that standards could be carefully compared. That would have been hugely helpful in this situation.

Anyone who hasn't been paying close attention may have forgotten the sample assessment material farce of 2015. Many schools had already started teaching the new maths GCSE when AQA decided to threaten to sue the other exam boards because their sample exam papers seemed easier than AQA and AQA thought they were stealing their custom. Ofqual had to step in and got a bunch of students to sit the sample papers and what they found was that all but I think one paper was too difficult, grade boundaries would be on the floor, and that none of them were fit for purpose. The exam boards had to scrap their papers and go through accreditation again. Any maths teacher could have told you the papers were too hard.

The thing is, the sample papers and the qualifications had been signed off by Ofqual without a single student sitting the papers. Once the papers were actually sat, the problems were obvious. The only reason this was picked up was because AQA threatened to throw its toys out of the pram.

Incidentally, exam board textbooks were written based on the original too-hard exams and are now sat in warehouses waiting to be pulped.

Same here in France: new text books for the reformed college were rushed through last summer and have largely been ignored (schools have been using old text books supplements with handouts). This is what happens when there are changes to the system.