Needing B at GCSE to do A level

[TheFrendo]

My son is awaiting his GCSE results. When looking round VIth forms, the standard requirement was for a B at GCSE in a subject in order to be allowed to study it at A level.

A chemistry teacher said that, "you are allowed to do chemistry A level with a B at GCSE, but I would not advise it. A B means you got half the questions wrong. This is not a good foundation for A level."

That statement made sense to me, but is it right? How well do students progress at A level with a B at GCSE?

It depends on how hard he will work and if you can get a tutor to go over bits he doesn't understand in class. Judging by the A level results at dd s college those that put the graft in got amazing results. But they did work!

7 isn't a high B, a 6 is a high B.

7+ stats match the A+ stats from last year so if we excluded 7s from taking A-level, take-up would drop massively!

Draylopn,

IIRC, the bottom of 7 was pegged to the bottom of A this year, as the same proportion of students were to get 7-9 as got A/A* last year.

So 7 is definitely an A.

I would also argue - time will tell - that having done a much harder syllabus, and tougher question sty;es, will actually mean that a 7 candidate this year will be in a better position than an A candidate last year. The 7 candidate will already have come across more of the A-level / AS-level concepts, and will have gone through the mental barrier of 'OMG, here's some Maths I can't do', rather than being 'dropped a few marks on an easier paper'.

We shall see.

a 6 is a B.

Cs are divided between 5 (good pass) and 4 (pass)

7 = A as that's how the grade boundaries were set
8 = A*
9 = A**

Draylon, I think the 6/5 thing will be useful in distinguishing here.

6s (high Bs) may be 'Just about A-level worthy if you really go for it, but may achieve a lowish grade'.
5s (low B / high C) are 'No way!'

I would expect 7s to progress as lower As did.

Tbf, 8 is A/A, 9 is top of old A.

So all 7s are equivalent to old As BUT
Not all old As would be 7s - some will be low 8s.

My DS got Bs at GCSE in the subjects he chose to do at A level and got AAB in those subjects at A level (this included Chemistry- his B at A level).

I got an A in GCSE Chen and came out with a U at Alevel ... I received As in all 3 of my other A levels. I will admit I'm more creatively minded but the leap from GCSE to A level in sciences is absolutely massive.

YUp
They get you in the lab no tell you to forget most of gcse chemistry and you almost start from scratch

@noblegiraffe can I ask you a question on querying a paper? My son (and a few others) got a C in his statistics paper (sat in year 10) but a U in maths in year 11. He has got excellent grades for all other subjects (6's and 7's). I am a teacher too but I am at a loss as to how he can have done that badly. Any thoughts?

wannabe that sounds extremely odd, although the statistics paper isn't a good representation of the GCSE maths content which is far more algebra focused so it's possible to do well on one and not so well on the other. To get a U on higher, you needed to fail to get an average of about 9 or 10 out of 80 marks on each paper, depending on exam board. Some students did fall off the bottom, but how did he think he had done? You'd have thought he'd have known he'd done that badly?

If it's Edexcel, then there's free access to his paper so I'd ask his teacher to take a look. What sort of marks was he getting on the mocks?

He was getting 4 and 5's. I just concerned how badly he had done and that there were a few of them.
I know the English papers inside out and have marked for the board. I know zilch about the maths. Thanks for answering :)

I'd get it checked over just because you literally have nothing to lose. A few getting Us seems very odd, like a paper had been lost or something? The grade boundaries for higher were so low it seems unlikely that the maths department got it that wrong for the mocks.