IGCSEs easier to get top grades in than 9-1 GCSEs

[noblegiraffe]

Education Datalab has looked at the results for IGCSEs and 9-1 GCSEs and concluded that “At the top end of the distribution, perhaps IGCSEs are indeed not graded quite as severely as reformed GCSEs… there looks to be something in it.”

www.tes.com/news/igcses-not-graded-severely-new-gcses

So we should expect to see private schools ditch IGCSE now.

It might depend on the board, but yes, certainly at least one of them (Edexcel) has all calculator papers, and only two exams. They claim that it's equivalent to GCSE in content, but in my experience, that doesn't necessarily translate to whether it is actually as hard or not.

And the calculators that they use seem to be able to do everything!!
I was working with a child on a question about fractions, and when the final answer needed to be simplified, his way of doing it was to put it in his calculator, and let it do it - apparently if you put in a non-reduced fraction and press a button, it automatically gives you the reduced fraction, or the decimal equivalent. He knew what the general idea was, but the thought of having to work out what a common factor of the two numbers was baffled him, and the idea of dividing largish numbers by 3 without using his calculator horrified him. He's not stupid, but has had so many years of using the calculator for everything that he's forgotten real basics, and doesn't have a strong understanding of the number system, which he should have by this age.

Agreed, different schools, different systems. DD's school, does the Edexcel iGCSE, but then, they all do higher paper, and the majority are also doing the FSMQ. So it shakes out in the end.

If a large number of the indies change from IGCSE to GCSE won’t it make it more difficult for state school students to achieve high grades?

Why don't they all sit the same exams? because the UK govt isn't allowed to interfere with IGCSEs. Private schools switched to IGCSEs after the UK govt started messing around with GCSEs as they no longer saw them as fit for purpose.

At the moment, one year in everyone is happy with the new 9-1 GCSEs and lots of private schools are talking about changing back. BUT this will change if the UK govt starts tinkering and having changed Independent Schools will revert back to IGCES as it is their job to enter their pupils for the exams which best prepare them for A levels. It is interesting that it is only after GCSEs have been revamped and course work removed that private schools have shown any interest in returning to standard GCSEs, which is consistent for the reasons they gave for moving to IGCSEs in the first place.

The real unfairness is that private schools can just ignore the govt and sit whatever exams they like whereas state schools have to follow govt rules regardless.