Yr 11 support thread - the scaffolding is holding up well

[pointythings]

Because we need a new thread now that things are really hotting up!

Yes, the AA band is quite wide - around 30-35 marks from bottom of A to bottom of A looking at past boundaries. Which is why the advice from teachers throughout the year has been not to opt for A level maths unless you are cruising at A* for most of the time. The step up from GSCE to A level maths just too big otherwise. A disappointment to my husband who was hoping that an A would get our son into sixth form maths. "They're not stopping maths at 15 in Singapore!" I happen to agree, but unfortunately, the only school that is doing the level 5 (MIE? - it's two years of more maths, leading to a qualification which is not A level, anyway - quite new and sounds very good, but not widely adopted yet ) maths locally is not especially hot on other things. I think our sixth form is missing a huge trick not offering it, but suppose you can't have everything.

Anyway, sufficient unto the day, and all that. Good luck to everyone tomorrow and hope everyone manages to relax over the weekend - bit of a break, eh?

Only feedback from DS is that AQA maths was 'OK', but for his ICT exam this afternoon (think it's WJEC) they had not been taught all of it. Am a bit but waiting for more info once he's finished vegging in front of the tv

Son says two in his set completed, and a third nearly completed, the last question on the Edexcel paper. He is at a small (~110 in a year), rural comprehensive , 'good' comprehensive.

DD was AQA higher too, she says it went very well and she knew the last question. There was another where she didn't have a clue so she left it and feels she really nailed all the others, then came back and had a go at it.

She scored an 8 and a high 8 in her mocks and has always been good at maths.

DT2 is in a top maths group but found it very difficult today.

Ds said only 3 in the year got the last higher edexel correct (grammar) & his maths teacher struggled & pronounced it ridiculous as a gcse question. We're now having a giggle at what's being written on twitter, where the higher edexel paper is trending!

I have not a clue how my ds did on his maths today his teacher is doing extra English literature till 6.
Waiting till he's back they got pizza in school for the students that wanted to do revision extra he will come home have a nice long soak and rest because he will 2nd shattered he's been up since 6 my poor baby...

Ds is at a very mathsy grammar, and reckons about half his top set got the last edexcel question.

I've been doing a bit of maths with a friend's son, and we had already discussed the fact that if there's an impossible-looking question, just ignore it, leave it to those chasing 9s!

CIE computer science this afternoon - 1h45min paper - on Tuesday for paper 1 they were allowed out after an hour as so many of them were sitting there finished, and again today ds left after an hour as he'd finished and checked it all.

He's supposed to be revising now for English but is too busy arguing with his sister ...

DS said the Edexcel higher tier was ok, albeit hard. He had a stab at the final question, but couldn't complete it.

He said the Latin verse was easier than he'd expected it to be.

higher Edexcel paper started off as Foundation and ended up A-level difficulty.

Yep. In fact all the higher papers will have started off as Foundation as there has to be an overlap of at least 20% of questions between the two tiers. I think on the Edexcel Higher paper today, Q1 - 6 also appeared on the Foundation paper.

Someone was asking upthread how they will decide grade 4 - 5 comparability between the two tiers. We know that 70% of the cohort will be getting 4 or above but we don't know how those 4s will be distributed between the two tiers.
Basically the exam boards will be using KS2 data to establish the relative abilities of the Foundation and Higher cohort, and then also looking at the pupil performance on these 'crossover' questions to try to ensure that a student who would have got a 4 on Higher will also get a 4 on Foundation.

Having looked at the Foundation papers for today, my impression was (without doing them) that they were harder than the practice papers that Edexcel put out, and that the grade boundaries will be low. I'm especially interested to see where the grade boundary for a 1 ends up as from what I could see there was very little on the paper that an old G/F, or even E grade student could attempt.

Ds also did Edexcel higher & found the last few questions tough. None of his classmates reckon they got the last question correct. He wants to do Maths & Further Maths at A Level so hoping those grade boundaries are low!

Am I right in picking up that people seem to think Edexcel was very hard, but AQA wasn't so bad?

DS (AQA) reports that it was "easy" and he finished it with 30 minutes to spare. Maths is one of his strong points though and he is hoping for a 9.

In other news, DS was so bored yesterday that he used his razor to shave off all the body hair from half of his body. So he is still very hairy on his right side, but his left leg, left arm and left side of his chest are completely hairless. It looks completely ridiculous!

I suppose I should just be glad that he's still got two eyebrows.

DS said the iGCSE Edexcel Higher Maths was fine - not especially difficult though not especially easy either. Maths is one of his weaker subjects so I'm just pleased he wasn't unduly worried by it. Latin verse was fine too. 'Fine' is his adjective of choice.

He is sitting shirtless with an icepack on his shoulders (for the heat, not any injury) contemplating starting revising The Merchant of Venice. He has just accused me of thinking that these GCSEs are harder than they actually are. Pride comes before a ... now what is that familiar expression?

I know it's IGCSE, not iGCSE, but I've been brainwashed by Apple!

Wjec mathematics-numeracy today here in Wales. DS said it wasnt as hard as the practice and sample papers.

Ds does even want to talk about it anymore

I wonder if it was that bad or he just feels disheartened. How can a child in set 2 selective school find it so hard?!

Fleurdelise,

Because the teaching may not be that good?

Because it was really hard fleur I read somewhere about a teacher sitting the paper & 50 % were A/A* questions whereas only 25% were last year. I wouldn't want to sit it or revise for it. Poor kids, best to keep their spirits up for remaining exams.

If it is that difficult though then grade boundaries will be quite low. As I mentioned before schools had the option of 9-1 grading or staying with A-G so it really is designed to split the 7/8/9 and in particular the 8/9. So those who have opted for numerical will see the difference between an 8 and 9 and those still using alphabetical will just get As even if they could have gotten a 9.

Nobel - will there be any correlation between exam boards - for example edexcel seems to have been harder than AQA - will the kids doing AQA be at an advantage for the higher grades?

Sorry Allthebestnames but state schools had no choice, they had to use the new GCSEs. Indies did have a choice until they realised universities would probably pick a state 9 over an IGCSE A+, the myth of which has been exposed as a lie. State schools turned to them when it became clear it was so much easier than GCSEs so it was ruled they couldn't.

TheFredo I don't think that's the case, he did have the odd teacher that he didn't get along with her teaching methods over the last 5 years but considering their past GCSEs results I can't justify blaming the teachers.

As I said maybe he did better than he thinks and he's focusing on the negatives, or maybe he really did bad, I guess I won't know till August. I am glad is half term next week, he'll have time to recover from the confidence knock over and move on.

I am also puzzled: if the Edexcel higher was reportedly (allegedly) harder than AQA higher how is that fair to compare the results? Wouldn't DCs that completed more on the AQA allegedly easier questions "take" the marks away from the Edexcel DCs who were faced with harder questions?

That's not to say the AQA dcs had it easy by the way, I just don't understand how do they ensure there is a fair playing field.

I don't suppose in the grand scheme of things universities are going to spend a lot of time distinguishing between an IGCSE A* and a new GCSE 9 for Maths. I think lots of private schools were glad to have the chance to see how the new spec panned out this year before making a decision on whether to move to it.