Ministers considering grade 10 at GCSE and numerical grades for A-level

[noblegiraffe]

inews.co.uk/news/a-levels-ministers-consider-a-switch-to-a-numerical-grading-system-1100624

Basically they've thought 'oh no, grades went a bit high during the pandemic due to our monumental mishandling of the situation, so we're going to bin that grading system instead of fixing it'.

Fuck off you fucking fuckers. So tired of this shit. Do your jobs properly.

I'm sick of them changing the grades.
I still haven't forgiven Gove for mucking around with the primary assessment levels. (Parent here).

Oh ffs.

Why do we need this intense pressure to grade the highest of the high. It doesnt help anyone and just puts ever increasing amount of work requires on kids each year

Havent they learnt anything about mental health of children.

Arggggg.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns .

We don't need grade 10s.
No one needs grade 10s at GCSEs.
All that will do is make the perfectly acceptable 4s seem rubbish and demotivate the mid/low achievers even more.

What we need is decent funding, & support for those with SEN or MH issues.

Fiddling around with mobile phones and grade 10s just distracts from the real issues.

(I was going to say I wonder what noble will say, then had the sense to check who the thread starter was...)

Completely agree Teen

More and more versions of an "A" will just lead those with perfectly acceptable marks to feel a failure or those with "low As" not feeling they did enough. And studying endless excessive exam texhnique for he elusive extra mark instead of proper education.

So unnecesary.

I had hoped that after the last couple of years there might be moves to reform the GCSE the other way (introduce a minimum standard level, plus possibly a higher standard level for those aiming to go on to study A Levels). Clearly not. Does anyone (except MN parents for bragging rights) really care about GCSE levels as long as they are a pass/sufficient to get onto whatever the next thing is?

I dont know the American or Australian systems well enough - but isnt there a level that's seen as a high school pass, and is seen as acceptable rather than "not an A". Alongside harder courses for uni etc.

I think there should be pass/fail exams in literacy and maths. More able students do them early. The ones that struggle can keep trying until they get to the required standard.

Well I always said that the reason 9 was the highest and not the more obvious 1 being top was so that they could add numbers at the top when it became easier.
I was told I was being too cynical.

It was obvious that they would start going ion about a 10 and that’s why they did it with 9 at the top.

And the bit about confusion about what the grade is worth depending on the year totally ignores the grand experiment by Gove at al when they spent a few years changing the format of the GCSES before the numerical grades came in , without leaving a gap between each change so the effect could be seen .

I genuinely thought nothing could be worse than Gove but was sadly wrong.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I think there should be pass/fail exams in literacy and maths. More able students do them early. The ones that struggle can keep trying until they get to the required standard.

Agree. And these should be the floor standards for

• entry to level 3 courses
• jobs

You just don't need to be at grade 4 level for English language to be perfectly literate day to day. Writing descriptive language throwing around imagery, or analysing how a writer has written for effect is not a basic literacy marker.

Similarly, whereas being able to deal with measures, percentages and ratios is needed for life, basic trigonometry isn't.

Individual courses could still require higher standards, so eg contruction may well desire a slightly better maths qualification.

I don't know the details, but I know Wales has a separate numeracy qualification.

Oh for heaven's sake! So much pressure on high achievers to get the top mark already. And pushes down the achievements of other excellent grades like 7s.

I've always thought that if they were determined to distinguish the best, they could have decided to award A with merit/ A with distinction.

Having said that, I've never understood why we so obsessed with creating disctinctions between the most able at GSCE level. This is the group for whom GSCE results matter least as they are the ones most likely to go on to A levels and degrees anyway.

Having said that, I've never understood why we so obsessed with creating disctinctions between the most able at GSCE level. This is the group for whom GSCE results matter least as they are the ones most likely to go on to A levels and degrees anyway.

Precisely, it's bragging rights really.

That sounds like a really good idea because it's not as if the new yr12 and yr10 have had much disruption to their education already. The yr12s will be so happy to be guinea pigs again having already been the first to do the 'new, improved' SATs. The new yr10s haven't had a full year of school since yr7 so probably can't remember what a proper exam looks like so it will be all novel for them

The Year 12’s weren’t the first to do the new SATs, the current Y11’s were I think? Cause DS1 is now Y11 and I’m sure before his year were Level 5 etc.

Completely agree it’s ridiculous. DS1 had just finished Y11 and is predicted 7’s and 8’s but that’s not good enough it has to go even higher

Yes that is what I mean - the new year 12s, they left school so long ago they don't seem like yr 11s anymore!

Ahh sorry…I thought you meant the current Y12’s!

If they want level 10s, they need to introduce banded papers in more subjects and include intermediate bands for things like maths, so that perfectly capable students aren't then made to do papers that are way beyond them, but still have a chance to do some challenging maths. And foundation level students could instead concentrate on the fundamentals, instead of having to do really quite difficult and unnecessary stuff that is now needed for a 5.

But I think it's just unneeded hoops to introduce a grade 10 really. The current top grades distinguish between good students well enough in the subjects that have clear mark schemes. And in the ones that are woollier, it will be even harder to tell what band various scripts should be placed in.

So many other things they could fix before this.

There isn’t any need to introduce a grade 10, they just need to go back to the original small percentage of kids who were getting grade 9s before the pandemic.

If they return to pre-pandemic proportions of kids getting grades, does it really matter that for a couple of cohorts they’ll have more grade 9s/passes than other year groups?

Those passes don’t represent a fixed standard anyway so they can’t claim it devalues the qualification. I posted analysis a while back that shows a grade 4 in maths GCSE now represents a standard much lower than a decade ago.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4193016-GCSE-maths-pass-standard-has-been-devalued-despite-Gove

And the suggestion of numbers at A-level is just mad. Can they point to any actual benefit it has provided at GCSE given all the confusion it has caused?

TBH with 9 as the top grade, there was always going to be a grade 10 / 11/12 introduced.

They planned this. To show the impact of their education policies.

If they didn't want grade inflation they would have had grade 1 as the top grade?

Already bonkers. The kids are told that a 7 is an A - but in fact it's worth less than a GCSE A grade and considerably less than an O level A grade.

Well no, because grade 9 doesn’t represent a fixed standard that increasing numbers of pupils are reaching, grade 9 represents the top percentage of pupils taking that subject.

If a grade 9 represents the top 3% (as it did in maths pre-pandemic) why do we need a grade 10 to represent the top 1.5%?

(with acknowledgements to "This is Spinal Tap")

But clearly 10 is 1 better?

and if kids get a load of grade 10s the government has proof that the quality of education is going up......

by the time I'm a grandma there will be 20's!!!

No, because loads of kids were getting A*s and they argued that was proof of grade inflation and lower standards.

The only thing I think there should be is a 15 year moratorium on any more bloody tinkering with the education system. Let's get some actual evidence before we make any more changes.