Moving from Foundation to Higher in Science

[AdventureTravelDreamer]

My DS, Yr9, is currently in a lower set at a non selective independent school. At present I am pretty sure it is anticipated that he will sit the Foundation level GCSEs in combined science.

I am intending on asking his teachers all of this at his parents evening straight after the Easter holidays but want to have as much information about the new GCSEs beforehand too.

How unusual is it for a pupil to be able to move up from Foundation to Higher? Is there a point after which it becomes virtually impossible? If he was aiming for a 5 would he be best to do Foundation or Higher?

I know that without knowing him it is probably very difficult to say but he is fully prepared to work hard for his exams (even suggesting that he would stop playing Xbox during the week!), is in a higher set for Maths and has been told that school expect all of his set to get a 7 / 8 / 9 so the Maths element of Science shouldn't be a problem.

I guess I am (probably totally unjustifiable!!) worried that his potential will, or has already been, capped too early.

Y9 seems very early to decide which tier to enter him for. At the school my children go to, this decision is usually made in Y11.

The decision about whether he will take Combined Science or triple sciences will probably be made soon, because the sets taking triple sciences will be taught more topics over the next two years.

I am a science teacher, and, very bottom sets aside, students would be taught all higher content and then a tiering decision made after the mocks. We teach the GCSE over 2 years and we often have students who waste Y10 but come good in Y11. Year 9 seems very early to decide on tiering to me.

I don't know for sure that any decisions have been made, and I know I am over thinking it (already!!) I do know that in past years his set usually do the Foundation paper and I don't know how fluid the sets are.

Obviously I have lots of questions to ask at parents evening but I just want to be forearmed. I am probably being totally unfair to school and the staff (both of which I have never had any problems with, this is me not them!!) as I am sure they will be making the best decisions for DS when the time comes.

I guess I just want reassurance that it is not to late to get a higher grade.

@CatAndFiddle would you usually enter a pupil who you predicted a grade 5 for Higher or Foundation?

Some questions to think about before you go to parents' evening

Why is he in a lower set? Is it attitude or ability?

He says he is willing to work very hard - I presume this means he hasn't been. Why not? What is going to change?

I tend to ignore predicted grades, they are usually complete rubbish. I go on the potential that the student demonstrates in class, collated end of topic tests, and the mock results. I have just submitted my tiering decisions for my two classes yesterday. If they got a 5 in the mock, they have been entered for the higher.
We do AQA, and they published tiering advice that has helped our decision making this year.

If it's AQA get mygcsescience.com

It's a one off payment for the year. It's not worth getting now, but certainly get it for the start of year 10. Has support both my DCs thought science GCSEs. It's a great revision tool and excellent value.

Around the February half-term is when exam entries are made. They can be changed afterwards, for a fee.

Do you know your son’s MidYIS data?

At this stage, I think it is important to find out if his set are taught any of the higher content. There is a fair amount of content that is higher paper only, so if his school doesn't teach any of that to his set, it is effectively ruling the higher paper out for him. However, in my understanding, even in schools that start GCSE in Year 9, most of this content doesn't come in until Year 10, so no decision would need to be made at this stage.

For students targeting a 5, I believe the decision is usually individual to the student- whether it's felt they'll cope with a higher paper where they can maybe only answer 20-30% of the questions with little room for error, but also potentially do well enough to get a 6, or whether it's felt they are better on a paper where they will have confidence to tackle all of it. For borderline students this decision is usually made in Jan/Feb of Year 11, so plenty of time!

Although you mention his maths skills, what are his English skills like? To do well on the higher paper especially, he will need good comprehension skills and to be good at communicating his ideas. The foundation papers tend to split questions up more and have more short answer/multiple choice style questions which might be easier for someone who struggles with writing down his ideas.

Thanks for all the responses, very helpful. I feel in a better place to ask the right questions at parents evening.