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 mean the problem is noble, that you keep saying grades are lies and nonsense when it's completely obvious that they're not. It's just daft to keep repeating lies and nonsense as though the repetition will make it so.

Edexcel have 93,000 sets of full exam data, from an exam set by expert exam setters in front of them and have said that they can't say what a grade 5 is on that exam is because it would be unreliable.

goodbye thinks that a teacher can knock up a test in an hour or so, give it to a class of 30 and then tell you which kids get a grade 5 on it.

noble please stop telling others what I think because you are consistently getting it wrong.

One thing I do think and have repeatedly said is that you're making a monumental fuss about nothing particularly material. I also don't think you have a decent perspective, in that you don't seem to be keeping a cool head about anything in the educational sphere at the moment. I also definitely do think you should stop representing your views as the only valid ones since it's patently clear that other teachers are taking a different approach, across all subjects not just in maths.

NC'd for this. Haven't read thread.

DS is sitting GCSEs this summer. Is predicted 9s and A*s in all his subjects. I got straight As in all my exams, and so did DP.

I think the Ofqual guy will be proved wrong.

Ofqual guy isn't talking about this year, he's talking about when it all turns 9-1.

Yes I think so too but the prediction is for DC taking the new specs across the board whereas your DS isn't, so to that extent (despite your DS's top notch predictions) the Ofqual guy isn't relevant.

So if you don't think that a class teacher can knock up a test, give it to a class of 30 and tell which kid is getting a grade 5, why do you think it is reasonable for them to give kids their results with a grade 5 stamped on them?

Yes, I know, but an early post invited a MN show-off so I thought I'd oblige

you don't seem to be keeping a cool head about anything in the educational sphere at the moment.

Ok, I've given this some thought - am I being unfair to the educational sphere in being negative about stuff?

Catastrophic budget cuts, recruitment crisis - DfE have failed to meet their targets for 5 years running, retention crisis - nearly 1 in 10 teachers quit last year, shambolic introduction of new GCSEs leading to DfE u-turn on pass grades at the very last minute, new A-levels for first teaching in September still not signed off, UTCs, free schools and studio schools closing down all over the country in a complete waste of money, not enough school places, a DfE that seems totally incompetent and last but by no means least, a move towards more grammar schools - a prospect that pretty much the entire educational establishment is united against but which is being pushed through regardless. Oh and my school has just had to make a bunch of teachers redundant.

So I really don't think it's my job to be relentlessly positive at the moment.

I think the Ofqual guy will be proved wrong.

I keep changing my mind on this. I suspect there are a few kids out there who have the ability to do this. But it won't be just having the ability, it's also having the stamina to maintain that performance over the whole period. I imagine that the top students at Westminster or similar can have, by their standards, a bit of an off day and still get an A*. But that may not be the case for getting the 9. It's going to be a hell of an achievement if someone does pull it off.

noble I haven't anywhere mentioned grade 5s - you have a habit of attributing things which haven't been said. What I have said is confined to my direct experience at our school, where tests are not 'knocked up'. That's a slur on your colleagues in the profession! I'm merely saying that your comments are clearly not shared across the profession and other teachers are approaching the changes in a very different way to yourself - which I happen to prefer, and which makes good sense.

Yes , WASO, I took up the early show off invite too, but I did do it anticipating the inevitable dusty response! Even though the thread title was about grade 9s, any admission that a DC was predicted a row of 9s was bound to be met with a oh it's alright for you/ I bet your kid won't do as well as you think/ the teachers don't know anything at all etc. etc. - but I'm fine with that!

tiggy the really tricky and limiting part is that those two (or more) DC will have to be extremely strong all rounders (although they might well not be the most gifted at any one subject).

I guess we need a list of what you might require:

1. Very high/exceptional natural ability
2. Capacity for very hard work but not getting too stressed out and exhausted.
3. Teaching capable of getting you to that level in all the subjects
4. A bit of luck - getting the right questions and not feeling a bit under the weather or actually being ill on any exam days.

Anything I've forgotten?

goodbye it's irrelevant whether it's a 5 or a 7, 8 or 9. Edexcel have said that they can't identify any of those grades on a full GCSE paper yet, what makes you think that it is reasonable for teachers to hand back classroom tests to kids with those grades on them?

Incidentally goodbye you seem to think that the teachers who are doing this are doing it happily and confidently. I know teachers whose school have this sort of policy and they think it is bollocks too.

Sheer physical and mental stamina but that's probably encompassed in what you say. But the GCSEs stretch over a long period of time, so just performing at that level over the whole three to four weeks is quite a feat.

I never underestimate the luck factor - not having something crop up which throws you, not feeling grotty at a level which falls short of illness which would warrant mitigation, sleeping sufficiently ok to focus.

But the bedrock is high level ability and very good teaching.

Anything I've forgotten?

Decent exam timetable. The kid with 3 exams on the same day is less likely to excel in the last exam of the day.

That reply was to HPFA.

noble I have confidence in my DD's teachers with good reason, most or many of them having taught my seven older DC over the past sixteen years and I'm sorry if that's a problem for you but this chipping away at me isn't getting very far - I'm more positive about this whole thing, you're very negative, that seems to sum it up. Proof will be in the pudding and all that.

I ask you to justify something, goodbye and you just pick at the details (grade 5!) bang on about how negative I'm being and how awesome other teachers are.

So I'm taking that as my answer, you can't justify it.

Goodbye,

I suspect that, as your child's school is a superselective, the awarding of grades is relatively easy because it is over such a small range - it would probably be outlying lows get a 6, then for the rest they choose from 7,8 and 9. Yes, that might be out by a grade or so, but the teachers are essentially choosing from only 3-4 grades, over a very tight distribution of ability, the top 10%, and thus huge error is unlikely.

Whereas in a full spectrum comprehensive, grades 1-9 are all relevant, as the full normal curve of ability can be present- obviously grading errors can be much greater with a much wider spread of ability and 9 grades to look at.

I mean ' teachers who teach only the top 10% of ability can assess hat their pupils are in the top 10% of ability, with no more than a 1 -2 grade error' is not exactly headline-grabbing stuff, since the top 10% is likely to be covered by only 3 or so grades.

Whereas 'Teachers who teach the full spectrum of ability can do what an exam board with masses of exam data cannot do, and assign a level that accurately reflects their performance with no more than a 1-2 grade error' would be MUCH more remarkable.

noble please remind me what I'm being asked to justify?

can'tkeepawayforever I'm not aware I'm trying to grab headlines! But yes, the range is narrower than in a fully comprehensive school, you're right about that. That's fairly obvious though and therefore why noble should decry the predictions of 9s as lies and nonsense and get so shouty I really don't know. However, the point about the general approach is relevant to any school and pupils, with the caveat that the new specs are very badly suited to the least able, as I've said often. That's not headline news either.

One thing about all this 'oh parents know that it's not really a grade 8+ or a level 4b or whatever' is that many parents don't know that it's all a good old guess, they do think it's accurate and they do pay attention to and care about this stuff.

I have responded to so many posts over the years where parents have said 'DS got a 4b on his last two homeworks for his maths but his report has only given him a 4c, what's going on?' Or 'DD was on a 5c at the start of the year and has only gone up to a 5b, should I hire a tutor?'

In fact I had a thread about it back in 2012 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/a1430501-Im-a-maths-teacher-and-I-make-up-sub-levels where other teachers confessed that it was bollocks in their subject too.

So given that teachers were regularly making up grades previously, there's nothing to say that the same isn't simply continuing with the new GCSE grades.

I do think it's particularly wrong to be giving kids these new GCSE grades on work when those grades will change once a cohort have actually sat the exam. Target grades in particular change every year.

And this is why grading students out of 10, 20 or 100, consistently, year in year out, is a good thing. People don't waste time fretting about it!