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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Grade boundaries will not be released early this year

22 replies

noblegiraffe · 31/07/2017 22:09

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/gcse-and-a-level-grade-boundaries-publication-delayed-prevent-pupil

Usually grade boundaries are released publicly the day before exam results day for GCSEs and A-levels. From now on, to avoid social media panic, they won't be.

OP posts:

00100001 · 31/07/2017 22:11

That's a good thing

OhYouBadBadKitten · 31/07/2017 22:52

will teachers be able to ascertain grade boundaries given schools get the results the day before?

MrSlant · 31/07/2017 23:13

So, oh noblegiraffe, what is your opinion on this? Would it be easier for you to prepare for the big day(s) with boundaries in place or is it all so hit and miss this year that it won't make a difference? Speaking here as a mother who values your judgment but has also given up on the system so much that we will be receiving one set of exam results by email in a French hotel because it's all got so ridiculous I don't care!

DS1, who you gave so much time to help me with last year, is getting his A/S results in person but, much to my joy, has been offered a job this summer doing exactly what he has a passion for because they were impressed with his skills rather than exam sitting ability so now I'm a lot more relaxed than I used to be.

titchy · 01/08/2017 09:19

In other words they're so low it's embarassing...

CauliflowerSqueeze · 01/08/2017 09:20

Schools get them a day early. Along with the grades. It's just the students who don't.

I think it's a good idea - students don't gain anything extra other than worry.

ASDismynormality · 01/08/2017 09:23

In other words they're so low it's embarassing...
I hope so. DD was predicted mainly As with some Bs and found some of the exams quite hard.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 01/08/2017 09:29

Yes I think they will be low. And then more accessible next year so that the Govt can claim that students and teachers and raising their game and standards are improving. It's all a massive political mess. With kids stuck in the middle.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 01/08/2017 09:30

I mean that results will be low not boundaries.

mumsneedwine · 01/08/2017 09:56

My prediction. Results will be similar to what they always are - but grade boundaries for English and Maths are going to be ridiculously low. And next year is going to be even worse as all the lovely new exams kick in. To be honest it makes no difference if we see the grade boundaries early although it's reassuring sometimes (wasn't for maths last year as had gone from 162 to 185 to get an A*).

GHGN · 01/08/2017 12:24

Schools get the results the day before but most teachers don't see them on the day. I normally have them at 6:30 on result day.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 01/08/2017 12:53

I don't think this has anything to do with student welfare, instead I think it has everything to do with controlling the news.

If they release them the day before, headlines will be about how low the boundaries are. If they release them on the day, headlines can be manipulated about how many passed, got grade 7s and 9s etc, burying the ridiculous boundaries.

One of the reasons for my cynicism is how late in the day they've released this news. Why announce a policy change so late?

Original poster

noblegiraffe · 01/08/2017 13:49

I agree that it's come about because the grade boundaries this year are so unknown - it's the first run-through of the new linear A -levels (not maths though so I'm not sure how interesting those will be) and the first run-through of the new maths and English GCSEs. The minute those GCSE grade boundaries come through, teachers around the country are going to be analysing, discussing, comparing exam boards and so on. They're going to be a news story on their own, even without the results. (2% needed to pass maths GCSE! Only 83% needed to get a 9! Or whatever it turns out to be).

It's true that level of discussion will be unsettling for the kids, moreso than in other years when grade boundaries were merely a tweak of the previous lot. But it's also possible that now the papers have been marked and they have an idea of how well/badly the cohort have done, that they're trying to bury the grade boundary news by drowning it out with results data.

OP posts:

StepAwayFromCake · 01/08/2017 14:04

I'm confused. How are grade boundaries relevant to students? Obviously grade boundaries matter post hoc, in terms of whether the exams are being set at the right difficulty, or students are being taught the right material, but why do students even need to know them? The result is given as a grade, nobody normally knows their actual marks, so won't know how close they were to grade boundaries.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 01/08/2017 14:14

Because

quite a lot want to get a remark if they are only a mark or two off and if they normally do better
if the entrance requirement for A level is an A, and they are one mark off, then the students can often get a place. If they just managed a B by one mark then they would not.

Witchend · 01/08/2017 14:15

I'm quite glad, but dd1 (year 11) is disappointed. She thinks she knows roughly what she got (especially in maths) and was hoping to work out her results before they came.
I'm glad because I don't want her going in expecting a high grade and finding she's made a few unforeseen errors and finding it's lower (but still one she would be happy with).

There's a lot of discussion with the year 11s what they think the boundaries will be-I hear the maths one, which is the one she's most desperate to do well in. Both her school year discussions and a more general one (studentroom.com I think) seem to be talking a lot about it. I think there have been estimations of everything from about 99% for a 9 down to about 65%!

Stepaway they do give actual marks, I'm not sure if the students get them now, but they did last year as dd1 was 1 mark away from an A* in statistics, so we appealed and she went up 2 marks. We wouldn't have appealed if she'd been more than 2 marks down as I wouldn't have thought there was any point in it. I think she said something about the teachrs getting them this yearm but the students don't.

Original poster

noblegiraffe · 01/08/2017 14:18

Students are quite savvy about grade boundaries these days. For maths AS last year, for example, the OCR C1 paper was a total and unexpected bastard of a paper. Kids came out shocked and saying they hoped the grade boundaries would be low. They will have known that for that particular paper in previous years to get an A you needed about 63/72. When the grade boundaries came out and you only needed 53/72 for an A, that will have reassured them that it was an extremely hard paper and that actually they could have done ok. For kids that are anxious about university places, that info would be reassuring before getting actual results. If the grade boundary were high, that would have the opposite effect.

Students do usually find out their marks and if they are very close to a grade boundary, papers are routinely sent back for remarks.

OP posts:

Original poster

noblegiraffe · 01/08/2017 14:20

For maths, for some reason the mark the student gets isn't printed on their exam slip. Teachers will have a massive print out with everyone's raw results on though and students who want to know their actual score should ask.

OP posts:

StepAwayFromCake · 01/08/2017 14:26

Then I have learned something. I thought nobody got marks unless teachers specifically requested them.

teta · 01/08/2017 15:56

I'm also deeply cynical about all this and agree with you Oybbk.
For the ones doing the new Linear A levels this year an announcement would have been incredibly useful.This would give my Dd 24 hours to prepare herself for either success or failure or clearing instead of perhaps having a major shock on the day.I feel sorry for the prospective medics/vets/dentists and the universities as it may be pretty chaotic if the results differ considerably from previous years.

BizzyFizzy · 01/08/2017 19:48

They've had 2 months to prepare themselves for success/failure. 24 hours will not make one iota of difference.

DD and her cohort found the A2s hard (harder than specimen papers), but felt the same way about the corresponding ASs the previous year in the reformed subjects where they typically came away with As and potential for A*s, although not relevant to their A2s. The mantra is that the grade boundaries will sort everything out.

Saying that, I know an awful lot of extremely anxious 18 year olds, including DD. It was the same for her three elder siblings in their day.

DataEducator · 02/08/2017 09:26

On results day if the school has not already provided the marks then ask for the Exam Officer to print the Candidate Statement of Results.

Some schools provide this as standard and some provide a simpler template with just the overall subject grades on. Some provide both.

Sometimes the full candidate statement of results can be a bit confusing on first glance.

diamond49 · 02/08/2017 09:45

D's got his maths exam marks (OCR )on his results slip.really important at AS particularly for Cambridge candidates

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