GCSEs 2018 (11) Big week coming up

[mmzz]

old thread

Uses you just have one exam board and everyone has to sit exactly the same exam study exactly the same books and poems across the whole if UK. But as it is it is stupid to try and judge 2 different poems,books,papers exactly enough to judge how hard one was to another.

Really?! How did you hear that Sost

After all what one person thinks is hard another will find easy. We do not have exactly the same amount of brainpower as humans so whole idea of trying to judge what us harder ridiculous.

Dgd knew 2 weeks ago there had been leak and the poem would gave been poppies. On their grapevine I suppose. They did not know what poem would replace it though.

mmzz yes ocr published a full account of how they dealt with it - if you google ocr Romeo and Juliet exam error you'll see the pdf.
It's quite lengthy but I think it gives you an idea of how they investigate the potential impact and what steps are taken.

Oh and just to add - whatever they decide it will not be a question of penalising students who did Ozymandias, nor simply awarding more marks to Singh Song! You'll see why from the OCR report.
I read somewhere about the leak but don't know if it was rumour or fact.

Don't worry korma, there are many who think I am actually am terrible 😀

Terrible. Really that is so nice for the art students and how motivating.

Calzone. Also forgot to say how nice it was if you to get DC little treat after exam. Little things keep it nice for Dc. We had planned for something after the exams are done to celebrate all the work that DD has put in. But I really like what you are doing.

For al the DC doing music would you recommend this as a gcse. DD never really thought of it. I guess we thought it tends to be the really serious music scholars - those with music scholarships. But actually just hearing you all talk about the pieces it sounds really interesting. May be worth considering for DS in a few years time but would welcome your thoughts. Are your DC real serious musicians? DC are both musical but not really advanced.

Sorry my messages are delayed - I am still catching up on the thread. It moves so fast.

DS's further maths has also been taught as an after school session once a week; he says its not about making you better at maths but about extending your understanding of mathematical concepts. Teacher said he only enters pupils who actually "think in maths" otherwise students end up stressed about it which then hinders their 'normal' maths exams. DS sees it as an unofficial requirement for maths Alevel - the (state) sixth form he hopes to go to will have a lot of super-smart kids from private schools and overseas who will have done further maths as a matter of course and DS doesn't want to start off feeling 'behind'. Which is quite a mature attitude I suppose!

I'm glad he's not anxious and not sleeping etc as I'm not sure how I'd manage that, but I do wish he wasn't quite so bloody complacent and sure of himself

I too found maths at school really easy and loved the challenge of a levels. But it was completely different when I got to university first term. Found it so hard and ended up changing degree completely. And I have struggled to help DD with the harder stuff.

It's been such a pleasure to see DD grow in confidence in her ability to do maths. She now finds it very doable and can do all questions. Think there is still some work left for Add Maths (also OCR) but DD will leave till science exams in the bag.

On an interesting point doing some of the practise papers available online We have come across errors in quite a few mark schemes - minor errors but they do affect the final answer is the marks or the working out. It's a bit worrying as these are official mark schemes from the board.

slinkyme I don't think it is only serious music scholars who get a lot out of Music GCSE. My ds is very musical and plays 2 instruments but is certainly not music scholar level! The requirements for the performance is around grade 4-5 and plenty offer drumming, singing if they have not been taught traditionally. Ds has loved music - it's a nice small group and very much more relaxed than other courses.

Did I really just read that someone was annoyed with their child for slightly missing an A* grade?!

slinky DS is doing CIE IGCSE Music and has loved it - particularly the ensemble performance and the composition.

At his school they have to do at least one 'creative' subject, so Music has a big take up. For the solo performance, the expected level is about Grade 5, and Grade 5 theory certainly helps.

He won't take it for A level, but will continue to play in school orchestra, quartets, jazz ensembles because he enjoys them. Oooh, and he has signed up to play in the pit band for next year's Musical because 'you get asked to all the Drama parties where the cool girls hang out...'

Just reread some earlier posts about the Ozy poem fuck-up. DS school did the Conflict poetry and over Easter I printed off some sample questions I found on TES. One was about Ozy, DS did it then confessed he'd done a similar sample paper at school!

He didn't tell me that the paper two weeks ago had the same qu on it! I've just quizzed him and he said yes, most of the class had expressed relief. Also, he hates the Poppies poem so is very glad he didn't have to do the leaked paper.

Very hard to know the right approach to that paper that's fair to everyone. A single govt-run exam board, with input from the current independent boards, would surely be more efficient and fairer to all students?

slinkyme are you talking about the practice papers for Edexcel Igcse 9-1? If so we spotted errors too. Hopefully they won't be there in the real thing...

DS2 is also doing the AQA further maths. That last week he only has further maths papers and nothing else, so no excuse not to revise.

Absolutely not government run. As far as I am concerned politicians should not be allowed within a mile of education!

Cherry yes the very ones. We ended up looking at the questions over and over again as DD couldn't understand where she went wrong and we finally came to the conclusion that the mark scheme was wrong. Let's hope they will pay more attention to detail for the real thing.

The music GCSE sounds really good. DS only plays one instrument but could get to grade 5 by then and is already in school orchestras and loves it. I find it adds a real balance to the studies. DD didn't do a creative but think in hindsight she would have enjoyed the music or Drama GCSE.

DS has really enjoyed gcse music. There was a real spread of prior knowledge in the class - definitely not just for the serious musicians!

OCR's response to last year's Eng Lit error: www.ocr.org.uk/Images/413287-technical-explanation.pdf

sos but they are already very involved and there's no sign of that stopping. Maybe what I meant was the exam system being like a nationalised industry rather than a private one? Run by public sector with input from many sources. But what do I know??! Only a parent (and ex-governor)

Oh god Terf i too called you terrible after seeing the earlier post. Sorry

No probs slinky

It's a shame that there's fewer opportunities in some schools at least to do a wide range of creative subjects at GCSE. It's all about the EBacc so often. Ours hasn't even offered drama or food tech for 3 years. And the music dept has had about 4 different teachers over the last two years, which has been incredibly disruptive for the GCSE students (last year, 5 out of 18 pulled out of the course in March of their Y11 because they knew they were so behind). None of those subjects are prioritised at Options meetings, nor do they have a representative teacher there to talk to parents. Where are we going to get future generations of composers, sculptors, chefs, plumbers, designers etc from if they aren't being encouraged to study those things at school? Sorry... hobby horse for me

hmmwhatatodo you did! What of it?