What are GCSE Grade 9s for...?

[Balootoyoutoo]

Just that really. I work in a university but am also a mental health professional, and I'm struggling to see the point of them. They cause a shed-load of stress and angst, but for what...?

I understand that they were introduced to help distinguish between the very able and the exceptional, but how many universities really need to make that distinction? The University that I'm with (think lower tier Russell Group don't tell them I said that, I'm fairly sure it's an instant dismissal offence) is very unlikely to need them for selection purposes, for even our most competitive courses. In fact, the only universities that I can think will make any use of them are Oxbridge, and maybe Imperial and UCL for their most demanding degrees.

Did we really need to upheave the entire system and demand ever higher levels of perfectionism, in the interests of a tiny handful of universities? Or have I missed the point?

I don't understand what you mean by Comparable outcomes mean that grade inflation can’t happen any more Noble. Can you explain?

What does that mean, noble? What is comparable outcomes?

Cross posts baloo!

So that John Humphries can stop saying "Everything was done so much better back in my day!" ?

Human beings get better at doing the same things, over time, they figure out how to do it better. So the teachers got better at teaching their pupils to get the best grades. If the GCSEs stayed about the same difficult but we didn't see 'grade inflation' that would imply the teachers weren't humans with human cleverness about being able to gain skills and learn how to do the same things better. Funny that.

Comparable outcomes mean setting grade boundaries so that the proportion of students achieving certain grades (9, 7, 4 and 1 I believe) is roughly the same from one year to the next. It’s whats being used to set those grades this year (with grade boundaries for the other grades spaced out between them as evenly as possible). Have we had confirmation that comparable outcomes will continue to be used to set grade boundaries noble? Last I saw, although it was quite a while back, it was only confirmed for this year. Being cynical I assumed that once they’d reassured everyone that these new exams were super tough then the grades would gradually start to creep up again as evidence of how much the government had raised standards.

You know how the pass rate for grade 4 and grade 7 have been pegged to last year’s C+ and A+ so that the proportions remain the same?

That has been happening every year since 2012. They use KS2 data to decide if each cohort is brighter or less bright than the previous year, then based on that decide what the pass rate should be so that a student with a particular KS2 profile who passed last year or got an A last year should (on average) pass or get an A this year (comparable outcomes). Then the grade boundaries are set to meet the established pass rate.

Yes, comparable outcomes will continue (it’s how grade boundaries are being set for maths and English this year). They are giving up using KS2 data to decide how bright a cohort are though, they’ve introduced national reference tests in Y11 which means they will give a sample of Y11s the same test each year and use the results of that to decide if that year group should do better or worse on their GCSEs.

Thanks Noble. Wow - I had no idea that it was pegged to KS2 data. Do KS2 scores really vary that much year on year...? And if they do, could that not be down to differences in the difficulties in KS2 tests...?

I’ve just realised that I think I know the answer to my own question. Comparable outcomes will continue but once you’re past the first year of the spec the formula that they are using this year won’t be needed because you’ll be able to peg all of the grades to the last year not just grades 7, 4, 9 and 1.

Well if everyone else who applied for a course got 9s and you got 8s you aren't going to get in

@robojesus - that's the point - for the vast, vast majority of courses, including those at Oxbridge, it's not at all clear that a string of 9s will give you advantage over those with 8s. So why pile on the pressure, other than for the political reasons that have been outlined on this thread.

Only 2000 pupils got 3 9s last year, far fewer than that will get straight 9s this year (far more subjects).

@Noble. Will it not be much harder to get, say 9 x grade 9s than 3 x grade 9s....? (It's a while since I studied probability theory - forgive me if I'm missing something).

Ahhh, sorry @Noble I misread your post.

Going back a couple of years the headline prediction for this year was that only 1 or 2 students in the country would get all 9s.

It has been suggested since that it should be more than this, maybe in the hundreds, as if you’re bright enough for several 9s, you’re likely to get them in even more subjects than that as the grades aren’t independent of each other (i.e. being good at English would support good results in humanities).

It will be interesting to see on Thursday!

lljkk but the proportion of people getting the top grades has increased year on year. They set results based on proportions, not raw marks, so what you are saying doesn't add up. They wait to see what marks people get and then set grade boundaries, otherwise grade boundaries would be fixed and the same every year.

I agree that teaching is getting better. There is a lot more teaching to the test. When I sat my exams I don't think I even did any past papers. We definitely didn't discuss mark schemes! Teachers are more savvy and we have the Internet to help. But it is still about grade boundaries. And there is no denying that they have been more generous over the years.

Grade boundaries have gradually gone up year on year, only dropping with new qualifications (its called the sawtooth effect, I think). The number of top grades increasing has happened as grade boundaries also went up. They weren’t going up because the grade boundaries were going down.

Do you have a link to prove that grade boundaries have been going up?

DD got 9s in the Englishs. I think it was about 3% nationally for English Literature and slightly less for Language. She got a high 8 in Maths which she was convinced she'd failed (but beforehand I had told her that mumsnet had said the pass marks was really low for every mark as they will make a difference - thanks noble - some of the top sets were not used to such papers and gave up). No one in her 250 intake good comp got 999 but there were lots of 99s. English Language seemed to be the most difficult one to get 9. Knowing what the examiners were going to give you points for was critical more than natural ability.

All this angst about the attainment of a tiny percentage of pupils getting highest grades whilst we have so many underachieving and getting below 4s and 5s. You’d never think that was the greatest problem reading mumsnet.

I don’t have a link as the UMS used to mask the increases because overall qualification grade boundaries were all in UMS but if you take as an example history paper 2a on Edexcel Spec B (chosen at random just because it was my favourite to teach) in June 2010, the first year I taught the spec an A was 37/50 (74%) an A was 32 (64%) and a C was 22 (44%) last year for the same paper an A was 42/54 (78%) an A was 38 (70%) and a C was 30 (56%). The grade boundaries were going up and they were also getting closer together.

Just because they're not useful to universities doesn't mean they're not useful for anything!
I think if I were a youngster, I would love the chance to aim for the top ( I'm so old, I did O levels and there wasn't even A*).
My DS1 gets his results on Thursday. He didn't work, so I'm not expecting anything higher than a 4 but there are clever, hard working kids out there who deserve the opportunity to demonstrate their ability.

I get what you are saying Dumbledor but I suppose without knowing if the exams are getting harder or not it is difficult to extrapolate. None of us know. My child will get his results on Thursday and I am obviously hoping for the highest grades.

He is aiming for 9s and hopefully be will get them if what you say is true. He is the sort of student that should achieve the top grades.

I hear what you are saying @JulianOfNorwich, but do grade 9s really allow the brightest kids to show what they can do? Or do they just allow those who are best at sticking to mark schemes to show this off? Any teachers able to tell us whether Grade 9s really do pick out the most able...or simply to most conscientious? Perhaps we will have to wait until Thursday to find out.