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

I'm sorry, but that is completely ridiculous. Particularly when nobody has even sat any of the new exams yet!

I agree. Previously they asked for a certain number of A* and A, but at least they knew approximately how many pupils in each year group were likely to achieve that.

I agree Pique, the kids caught up in the transition may find it tough to adjust but in the long run I think it's good that we won't be seeing strings of top grades. I've prepared a few kids for Oxbridge interviews over the years and often the first hurdle is to get them comfortable with not always getting things right. At first they often panic when they don't know the right answer to something right away as they just aren't used to it.

Great, i have a semi mixed set ( top half of year group) and in that approx 19% are predicted 9s, guess I'll be getting my P45.

19% predicted 9s. Unless that's the top half of the ability range in a super-selective then there isn't a hope in hell they'll achieve that surely? If anyone is in trouble it'll be whoever set the targets, no? They appear to have fundamentally not understood the new grades and apparently haven't read the guidance published about how may of each grade will be awarded.

Noble 3 or 4 children in my dds top msths set got over 93% so I still think close to full marks will be required for a 9 as we are talking about a normal comp here. Kids that "get"maths find it easy to achieve full marks. Dd1 alwats comes out of maths exams knowing exactly wgat marks she's dropped due to silly mistakes!

Helen on the secure Edexcel November mocks? The full papers?

I don't think they could have. Nationally, hardly any kids scored over 90% on that mock.

Argh, this is really quite worrying isn't it? DS was predicted an A or possibly an A* if he has sat the GCSE last year. He only got 42% in the Edexcel mock. He wants to talke it for A level, but is really not sure if he is good enough now.

Can teachers comment on whether their kids who got that sort of mark for the mock would be suitable A level candidates? If 30% was the average mark, 42% doesn't sound high enough to me to be A level level as it were,.

I have no idea what the spread of scores were, but DS took all three papers. His school seem to be playing catch up quite a lot, with no extra work being done outside standard lessons, yet I read on here of other schools seemingly doing a lot more. He says there are still things they haven't covered. If the grades are going to be pegged approx with last year's distribution, does this mean that schools that are doing less are disadvantaging their kids?

So for you mathematicians -

In 2016 5.7% of pupils gained an A* in maths & 10.2% of pupils gained an A. There were 757,296 candidates in total.

The govt have said that approximately the same percentage of pupils will gain Grades 7-9 as previously gained grades A & A*. The top 20% of these will get a Grade 9

What percentage of candidates are projected to get a Grade 9 in Maths & how many is that assuming the same number of entrants.

The top 20% of these will get a Grade 9

Nope, this has changed, because changing things in the middle of the course is what the government does. The government doc detailing the changes reckons 3.7% of students will now get a 9 in maths, about 22,000 kids (3000 fewer than when it was going to be the top 20% of the 7+s).

See page 7 www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/551571/Decisions_-setting_GCSE_grade_standards-_part_2.pdf

Hi AlexanderHamilton. Sorry didn't realise school could opt for 9-1 or opt for A -G still. Ours has opted for numerical presumably because they want to look at their percentage split between 9s and 8s. It is a super selective (78%A and 94% A*-A at GCSEs).

Great (not) not that dd is on track for a 9 in maths but she's hoping for an 8.

Why can't they stop messing around & changing their minds.

Cripes! I wish someone would point that out to DD's school. They've predicted her 9 in every subject. The pressure they are putting her under is astronomical. Though to be fair it's a bog standard secondary in a very deprived inner city area and the prospect of a high achiever appears to be making them a bit giddy.

Fortunately DD is far more pragmatic and reckons she might get one or two. I'm relieved she has a better grasp of statistical probability than the school.

At the moment it's conceivable that DD (Y10) might get all 9s, given her predictions and how she's doing generally, but I think the teachers are being pretty generous in their predictions and although it would be quite neat to get all 9s, I'm not that fussed either way.

She could also go completely off the rails - plenty of time after all :)

So, according to the anecdotal evidence on mn threads, most of our yr 11 dc are apparently working at between grades 2-5 in both English and maths, but most of our year 10 and below dc are predicted all 8s/9s.

Not at all amusing/confusing .

I imagine the number of pupils getting all 9s will increase slightly year on year as everyone gets used to the new exams.

Probably a good thing to have a high bar - it means very able pupils will have to get used to not getting the top mark in everything.

Am looking forward to the MN thread on 2017 GCSE results day.

As I understand it the number of students getting 9s will be the same year on year regardless of how many marks students in the cohort get as the new grades will be norm referenced and not criterion referenced.

2017 won't be that interesting will it, with a silly mix of letters and numbers?

Well, It's generally supposed in MFL that the only students that will achieve 9s are native speakers... such a shame. This means that no matter how hard a really top student works in MFL ... they're never going to be as good at 16 as a native speaker, are they?

Oh dear. DD has never been to France and won't have a chance to before the GCSE, so bang goes her 9. Why are they predicting 9s if they're clearly this tough? Are lots of schools dishing out buckets of 9s?

Four corner - dd has a child in her year who lived in France for several years.

He is disadvantaged because his accent is the wrong region & he is too colloquial (though he is doing AS not GCSE.

Dd is year 10 - she passed the exam to go to a selective school but chose to go to a non selective. She's one of the high flyers in her current school but would have been average in the selective school
She is predicted a range of graded from 6/7 to 8/9 but mostly 7's.

Why are they predicting 9s if they're clearly this tough?

Because they're being a bit lot shit? Predicting anyone a 9 is absolutely ridiculous and entirely unlikely to actually be true.