Y10 child predicted mostly grade 9s for gcse

[kitnkaboodle]

This can't be right - in either sense of the word, can it?? A friend was told this at a recent parent's evening at an average school. The child is bright and v. studious/conscientious, so all power to him, but .... can this be right? Doing about ten subjects and level 9 predicted in all but two

Don't see not. I got 3A*, 7A, a B & a C and I didn't do any work.

And a couple of friends got all A*, this was a while ago of course.

I think any teacher predicting all 9s at this stage before anyone has taken any of the new exams is taking a huge risk. I know there are posters on here who disagree with me.

It's only a prediction but I don't see why it's not possible.

Dd is only year 8 and predicted 9's but I don't take much notice as she has a long way to go yet.

Predicting, or targeting?

As I said- the teacher is sticking her neck out.

My DD is predicted all A* (recently upgraded to all 9s). She is academically focussed - hopeless at PE, hopeless at music/art/anything handy, away with the fairies half the time - but academically gifted - it's her "thing". She loves tests, and revision...

I think I'd be more suprised if the teacher/school was making the same prediction to a few children. From my (admitted fairly limited) understanding of the new system, it's going to be much less likely that pupils will come out with a clean sweep of As/A*s though presumably a smaller number still will do with 9s. Your friend's child may be "that" child. As the PP has said though, quite a ballsy call before anyone has done any of the exams!

No its not right to predict grade 9s because the grade boundaries are completely unknown until results day in August.

Theres an estimate between 2%and 3% of grades may be graded a 9 and some suggestion those will be scoring close to 100% on the exam papers.

Estimating 8s are easier as those students previously looking at gaining an A* may achieve 7s and 8s confidently.

My guess is that they are targets rather than predictions. A lot of schools set aspirational targets.

No one has sat these exams yet, so the teachers don't know where the grade boundaries will fall.

If a student got level 6 in their Y6 SATs then I can see how the software that sets target grades would set them at 8s and 9s.

There are loads of kids who have targets of 9s in a number of subjects. Nobody knows how many of them will get even one 9, let alone all of them. It is utterly ridiculous to give targets of 9 when the exam boards can't show teachers what a 9 even looks like.

I teach maths, we've got kids at school with targets of 9, but no idea at all where the grade boundaries will be to get that. We as teachers keep reminding them that 9s are supposed to be incredibly difficult to get, so an 8 is more realistic.

DS2 is in Y10, his target grades for the end of Y11 are 8 in English language and English literature and 9 in everything else. He sees these grades as something to aim for rather than what he'll actually get. Realistically, he is hoping for 7s and 8s.

Why isn't it right?

Because the DoE has calculated only 2 students will get straight 9s. www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/27/new-gcses-only-two-pupils-in-england-will-get-all-top-marks

It hasn't even been decided yet what percentage of the cohort will get a 9 for each subject.

Grade predictions for the new GCSEs should be taken with a large pinch of salt. My Y11s are sitting their maths GCSE this week and I think they should get 4s and 5s but I don't know who will get the 5 as we don't know where the cut-off will be.

No, of course it's not right.

And just to show that even experts don't agree, an examiner has predicted that hundreds of students will get all 9s.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-major-exam-board-predicts-hundreds-will-get-straight-grade%3Famp

Are they definitely predictions not targets?

jamrock even the Department of Educations own staff have said that only the top 2-3% of students in the country will gain a 9.
He said that the number actually achieving 9s will be in single figures because the marking is stricter and the exams are so much more difficult.

There are hundreds of schools predicting 9s across the board (including my DD) which really doesn't add up. Absolutely teach those children to aim for a 9 but until it's known what sort of level a 9 needs to achieve there's really little point using it as a realistic level of achievement.

In dd's school a child who got 5a's in SATs gets a target of 8 for everything, so children who got 6s would probably get a 9 target.

There's a difference between predicted grades and target grades. The target grades are based on the CAT test taken in year 7 which shows the potential of a DC. The predicted grades are the grades that the schools believe dcs can achieve based on their current effort.

As an example: DS entered an academic selective school in year 7 and based on his CAT test his target grades since year 9 have been A/A* 8 in English and 9 in Maths (he's doing GCSEs at the moment). This is what he would be capable of if he'd put in the effort.

In reality he'll probably get a couple of As 3Bs and the rest C with one GCSEs failed, as he hates it. He's not willing to put in the effort necessary to achieve those grades the school think him capable of and does minimal revision.

So it's possible with a studious capable child but I wouldn't trust the target grades much as they give you a fake sense of security.

My daughter's teachers are being very vague about any predictions. They are pretty much saying to me that she should get a 7 or higher in most subjects or a 5/6 in a couple where she is a bit weaker. I guess they are using the formula that in old money she would have been one of the percentage that got A/A* so she should be in that same percentage of 7& above.

No one knows where the grade boundaries will lie so how can they predict 9's?

My feeling that it isn't right is because I thought the grade 8 was the equivalent of A. Lots of kids get all As, I realise that, but getting all level 9s will be better than that. I'd got the impression that getting a level 9 is like getting about 95%. Friend is sure it is predictions not targets. Btw I wasn't so rude/flabbergasted to her face! Just said 'wow, that's amazing'. Came on here to get others' perspectives

In any calculation anyone does (Leunig only claimed to have guessed, by the way, so 2 in the country is not an official DofE prediction or anything like it!) the key issue is how correlated children's scores are across subjects. That's something there must be data on, though collating it across boards might be painful.

Extreme cases (only roughly, because actually children don't take all subjects)

Perfectly correlated: prediction, 2-3% of children get all 9s.

Not correlated at all: prediction, no child gets all 9s.

The truth lies somewhere in between. My finger-in-air guess: results are really pretty well correlated, so the examiner who predicted hundreds of children would get all 9s is probably right. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it's over a thousand. Of course, many many more will get all but one result 9s and MN will be full of parents mentioning eg the 9 9s and not the tenth result

As others have said, I was under the impression that 9 was the top end of an old A*, so difficult to achieve.

But someone's going to do it. There are many children out there who achieve great results across all of their subjects. I don't see why going to an average school will stop them being one of those children.