Private school but 5s,6,7,8S gcse results ?

[ROZ12]

Hi all

I feel proud of my dd for achieving all passes but part of me feels disappointed with the school as I paid so much money and expected her to get 7-9s. Am I being silly? I feel like the classic photo of the girls getting all 9s should have been my dd. At least their investment paid off .

[cakeisalwaystheanswer]

IGCSEs were revamped to 9-1 from this year only so comparing new revamped GCSEs to old IGCSEs is an apple to an orange. Now the course work has gone I think sitting IGCSEs will die out in this country.

DD's school split the languages (everyone sits at least 2) across the systems to spread out the oral dates. There was no real difference in terms of learning for what she did for both except a short translation into English in one system which was just gimme marks. She got 8s in both. The difference between the 2 when DS1 sat was huge.

[Aragog]

GHGN - yet the maths teachers I know and have spoken with on the whole disagree with you. They're just different in their option. Dd got the same grades in mocks and practise papers on both styles of exams too so didn't seem to be too much of an issue.

And tbh it doesn't even matter as you don't have to write whether it's GCSE or IGCSE anyway and at the end of the day it's the same grade on paper.

[Aragog]

Cake - they were the new 9-1 syllabus last year too, in maths at least.

[Pipandmum]

My son went to a private school and was middling to low sets as he really didn’t put enough effort in. He was predicted to do 4s and 5s, a couple 6s if he pulled his finger out. He did not do well in mocks. Despite being private I got an English tutor and math/science tutor.
He tanked. Did worse than mocks and only passed the two English exams. Borderline for math and have requested a review.
I am devastated. I thought for sure he would pass at least five, maybe even get a couple 5s. I think he’s really let himself and me down. If he had worked hard and it just wasn’t in him then fair enough, but he was way overconfident and simply didn't revise enough.
I do think paying £15k a year to a good private school should pretty much guarantee a pass in most subjects, even with poor revising. He’s there for 8 hours a day and I wonder what the heck he was doing? His grades were mainly Bs and Cs.

[Ligresa]

The government want schools to stick to their new reformed GCSE's
The decision to phase out igcses was political not because they are easier.

Dds private school English dept like the syllabus so igcse English has remained. Ditto history and maths.

[cakeisalwaystheanswer]

Aragog - only maths and english, everything else if this year. When schools like Eton move everyone will because atm it is a huge selling point for IGCSEs that overseas schools can sit the same exams as Eton.

I think all British schools will move in the next few years and then the silly arguements can stop.

[ooooohbetty]

@roisinagusniamh my children have left school. There were 2 children that I know of from council estates. There were was 2 children that I know of who had fathers who were taxi drivers. There were a few others whose parents owned takeaways. We are a working class family and my exh had built up his own business and could afford to put his children into private school. I'd never even considered it nor did I know anyone who'd gone to private school. It just so happened that our nearest school was private so we went to look at a few. I've worked in state schools and still work in education and while I totally acknowledge that some schools are as good or better than some private I'm glad my children went to the schools they did. Unless you have some experience of them you have no right to make sweeping inaccurate generalisations.

[zzzzzzzx]

Ligresa you are completely right. I don't understand why people are thinking a combination of 4/5 at year 6 SATS is low when it only goes up to 5!

[TitchyP]

My DC attends an independent but getting top grades is absolutely not one of the things I think I'm 'buying'.

[roisinagusniamh]

Betty, you are hardly describing a cross section of society there, are you. Any kids from Woman's Aid or from the travelling communities at your kid's old school?

I said it's where I live, (where the state schools are so good)it tends to be the upwardly mobile spending vast amounts on private ed when they don't need to.

[Newgirls]

Top private school near us were in paper for 80% of pupils getting As at a level. Amazing yes. But that means 20% didn’t. And this is v selective school.

[BertrandRussell]

“Wow given where she was in year 6, she and the school have both done brilliantly.”
What do you mean? 4-5 is average and above average SATS surely? Well on track for good GCSEs....

[FermatsTheorem]

My misunderstanding - I thought OP meant that in the basis of her SATs the projection for GCSE was 4s and 5s (which are still passes of course). My DS's primary just broke SATs results into pass/fail/above expected level, didn't give numbers.

[BertrandRussell]

If some private schools are telling parents that 5s and 6s are amazing grades for a kid who got 4/5 year 6 SATS and parents are accepting that without question, then I have a nice bridge here in London going for a knock down price........

[FermatsTheorem]

But what does 4/5 year 6 SATs mean? I genuinely don't know - I've never come across SATs being given numerical grades before this thread.

[Teachermaths]

Igcses are no longer included in state schools progress 8 figures so state schools don't sit them. They were seen as "easier" for some cohorts and pupils. Mainly due to being allowed a calculator on all the Maths papers and having multiple choice questions. I haven't taught it for a while so not sure if this is still the case.

SATS did go up to a level 6 if your Dcs sat an extra paper. Level 4 is average, level 5 is above average. At GCSE students achieving a level 4 would be expected to achieve at least a grade 4 although most schools would aim for a 5 as minimum.

I do think paying £15k a year to a good private school should pretty much guarantee a pass in most subjects, even with poor revising

Why does your son deserve to pass just because you paid for his education? If he couldn't be bothered to work, then he deserves to fail. His results shouldn't have been a shock, the school should have warned you beforehand how little work he was doing. But you don't deserve to pass because you paid. You deserve to pass through hard work.

[Teachermaths]

@FermatsTheorem

If your dc are younger then they will have sat the new sats which are given a number score like 105 or 98. The school may report this as words like "expected" or "exceeding". 100 is the pass mark for the sats and students who achieve 100 or above in English and Maths are considered secondary school ready. About 65% of the population get this every year. A score of above 100 is above average, the highest score is 120 and lowest 80. The scores are normally distributed so the majority of students are around 100.

[FermatsTheorem]

Thanks - yes, DS sat his this yea and the marks were reported as you describe - hence my confusion: I thought the OP's 4s and 5s were predicted progress 8 projections for GCSE.

[Ligresa]

If some private schools are telling parents that 5s and 6s are amazing grades for a kid who got 4/5 year 6 SATS and parents are accepting that without question, then I have a nice bridge here in London going for a knock down price.......

Where have you got that from?

[Ligresa]

it tends to be the upwardly mobile spending vast amounts on private ed when they don't need to

In your opinion. Yes, my dd could have stayed at her local comp. I didn't 'need' to send her. The comp was fine. But I have the money to be able to afford more than fine. I've had two go through the system already so very much know what I am getting. Chippy parents being out of my life is just a bonus.

[Drabarni]

You can never bank on good results though whether state or private.
We've done both and ito results there isn't a lot of difference academically.
We went for other than academic though and that has certainly paid off and been worth the fees.

[BertrandRussell]

“Where have you got that from?”

Well, posters are telling the OP that her dd’s are amazing considering where she started and they would have been worse at a state school- they must have got that from somewhere.......

[Ligresa]

I doubt schools are telling them that though.

[FermatsTheorem]

Incidentally one of the things I do find confusing is that 100 isn't the mean of the normally distributed marks if 65% of the population get 100 or above. It's more like mu - sigma. I had a good ferret around the DfE website and couldn't work out how the scaled marks mapped onto percentiles of a normal distribution. I came to the conclusion that the whole marks scheme was designed to be as obscure as possible, for political reasons I suspect (the Tories don't want anyone getting a firm grip on what an arbitrary clusterfuck SATs are).

[herculepoirot2]

You can’t buy good grades, OP. You might be able to buy an environment in which a child is supported to achieve the highest grades of which they are capable, but your DD’s SATs results suggest she did that. She sat the exams, not the school.