Will this GCSE result impact on A’level predictions? Really worried

[GCSESbegone]

My DS has received a mark a couple of grades lower than he was expecting for a subject he is taking at A’level. It was a real shock as it has always been a subject he’s excelled in and even his teacher has said he would have expected him to do much better and has no worries about him taking the subject at A’level or doing well in it. The exams were marked externally and his teacher had no input. We’ve looked into appealing but are pretty sure it will get us nowhere. I’ve now started a spiral of worrying that this is going to have a big impact on predicted grades and subsequently getting university offers as he needs high grades for the course he wants to do. Can anyone reassure me as I really am worried. All other grades were very good.

So it looks like it is an exercise in bending to shape to fit etc. so it has to be worth appealing I'd say.

Absolutely agree with marmalade. It is not the correct process. Students should have been graded on their individual evidence. There is a conversation about this on an A Level thread too.

Thanks so much for the support.
@Piggywaspushed can’t find the A’level thread - was it under secondary Education?

I think it might be in FE possibly.

I’ve just read the JCQ guidance for students and parents which states that:

‘Teachers will initially determine your grades, which will then be reviewed by your school or college.’

Doesn’t seem like this happened at our school.

and:

‘Schools and colleges also have the option to set tests for you in order to gather further evidence. Teachers can develop these tests or use assessment materials provided by the exam boards. Importantly, these tests are not formal exams, nor are they designed to play the role of exams’

All evidence used at DSs school was from formal exams in the exact format of GCSEs.

Was this allowed? Their procedure has been approved but these guidelines are different to what they did.

To be fair, in the end most schools effectively did exams. It is how they were marked. moderated, standardised and grades arrived at that matters. If any child's evidence, based on samples and descriptors provided by the board, says they are eg a 7, they shouldn't be given a 6 (or an 8) to fit some idea of distribution of grades or rank ordering.

I had to argue some grades down at my school because data guy's graphs said they were a 4 , for example and none of the evidence supported that.

Hi @GCSESbegone, I'm not going to get into how grades were done in my school, as I think that is a separate thing to what you're actually worried about.

His targets for A level outcomes (not predicted grades) will be devised from his GCSE average point score (this is what the DfE use to measure progress in KS5) and set accordingly.
These are a target not a limit!

If he is genuinely good at computing, then I am guessing that he spends his own time writing programmes, making games/apps etc? This is what will give him the understanding and experience to handle those parts of the course. How is his maths? If he got a high grade in his maths, he will likely be absolutely fine (and his teacher also said so!).
Computing is probably the 'hardest' A Level under the new reformed A Levels, but that doesn't mean he won't do well. Also remember that students moving between schools at this point and doing A Level computing may not have had the opportunity to take GCSE computing, because many many schools just can't offer it. Their maths knowledge and understanding is what is crucial though,as you do need to be able to think logically and creatively to devise programmes.

His UCAS predicted grades will be based upon his work/assessments in Y12 - his teachers won't even look at his GCSE results when devising them, in all likelihood. That is what is crucial- that he gets into a studious mindset, works well this year, revises and performs well in his internal exams next summer.

I understand how upset he would feel if he's strong in the subject then got a poor grade... but it's just one tiny piece in the jigsaw that is his whole academic career, and it really will count for naught once he has his A Level results. (And, yes, I know a very few universities demand straight A*/8s at GCSE for certain courses, but there are hundreds of institutions and thousands of courses, let alone those in other countries!)

If the teacher is happy with him taking the course, he should stop worrying and borrow from his teacher's belief in him. Best of luck to him!

*nought maybe?

Oops.

And just an anecdote about "anonymous" marking (because class teachers would all know the pupils by their handwriting!) - at university my DH had a course in his final year where he was the only student on the course (imagine that happening nowadays! £££££) and our university still insisted on anonymous marking (we had numbers printed on the papers, and we had to fold over the corner and there was gum already on there, to hide our name). In addition, the course lecturer was the only person in England that could understand or mark the course.

The invigilator was somewhat bemused by the instructions to anonymise the answer booklet.

piggy Agreed.
Apart from the descriptors for maths were poppycock and you could put almost any student on any "grade" according to them.
We used historical performance once we had already graded them as a sense check that we weren't wildy out.

Yes, the grade descriptors for most subjects were not -errrmm- helpful... .

@Haskell thanks for replying. His maths has always been strong and luckily he has very done well in this and the other subjects he’s taking for A’levels. That’s why it’s so annoying and confusing as computing has always been a passion of his and we were under the impression, from marks he’s received previously, that he’d do well in that too.

@GCSESbegone

I’ve just read the JCQ guidance for students and parents which states that:

‘Teachers will initially determine your grades, which will then be reviewed by your school or college.’

Doesn’t seem like this happened at our school.

and:

‘Schools and colleges also have the option to set tests for you in order to gather further evidence. Teachers can develop these tests or use assessment materials provided by the exam boards. Importantly, these tests are not formal exams, nor are they designed to play the role of exams’

All evidence used at DSs school was from formal exams in the exact format of GCSEs.

Was this allowed? Their procedure has been approved but these guidelines are different to what they did.

yes it was allowed

yes everything you say indicates that the school did everything exactly as they should have done

The issue here is largely that some parents just have no concept of what a huge complicated, multifaceted operation this was.

most schools used annonymisation where they could.

Whether they did or didn't, they ALL consulted within their school, and with other schools, and compared, formulated, standardised and moderated for literally THOUSANDS of teacher hours.

So no, you are not going to be able to wonder along and complain that you personally don't like whatever process your school used, and get any response what so ever.

@Haskell

And just an anecdote about "anonymous" marking (because class teachers would all know the pupils by their handwriting!) - at university my DH had a course in his final year where he was the only student on the course (imagine that happening nowadays! £££££) and our university still insisted on anonymous marking (we had numbers printed on the papers, and we had to fold over the corner and there was gum already on there, to hide our name). In addition, the course lecturer was the only person in England that could understand or mark the course.

The invigilator was somewhat bemused by the instructions to anonymise the answer booklet.

some hand writing might be recognisable, but don't forget many schools have banned teachers from contact with handwritten work over the last 18 months, plus teachers have hundreds of students, plus many papers were double and triple marked, plus partner schools marked each others.

I had around 330 students last year. I would perhaps recognise the hand writing of 2 or 3 of them, and not reliably

You personally taught 330 students??

@Piggywaspushed

You personally taught 330 students??

I personally taught 470 pupils last year, 82 were in exam classes. I barely recognise which year group a student is in let alone hand writing!

I meant in exam years!

Must depend on the subject. I taught over 100 in years 11 and 13 and recognised handwriting coming through on a blind marking .

That’s exactly what happened to my DS. I wonder if they’re at the same school

I don't think so OP since our school did their marking internally but they did also use full exam papers this May/June. I'll PM you.

I think my DS's school is suggesting we do an exam board appeal (which I'm interpreting as them thinking that with hindsight they ought not to have downgraded the previous exam results). We are thinking about it since DS is becoming less bothered as the days pass. Have you asked for your son's full breakdown of all of his potential evidence and the submitted pieces.

Is your exam board CIE?

One thing I will also add is that if he's not using the technical language specified in the syllabus to explain processes etc, he will lose marks. My DD had this in her most recent exams for computing and for science- she understands exactly what is going on, but hasn't used the required terminology, so wasn't given full marks even when there was clear explanation.

Please note that all schools had to submit their actual method of markinmg for each subject to each exam board for approval prior to the grades being submitted and that the exam boards will have looked at an agreed their methodology.

Our students papers did not have their names on and they were given candidate numbers and the teachers were not aware of which student had which number when marking the assessments that formed the evidence.

When it came to applying grades the Head of Department and another senior teacher in that department did so and applied any special circumstances too.

Sometimes a mock may be "downgraded" if it did not cover the harder part of the syllabus because it had not yet been taught. The guidance was also that nore weighting should be applied to more recent pieces of work than to older pieces.

An appeal will only be allowed and successful if they have not followed their procedure, but the exam board will have already considered the actual procedure and signed off on it so you would not be able to argue that the procedure itself was incorrect, only if they failed to follow it.

Please excused my many and varied typos in the post above.

I should also mention that the names were known to the HoD and senior team member when they applied grade to the marked work but noone knew whose work it was when the marks were being allocated in case I hadn't made that clear.

Sometimes a mock may be "downgraded" if it did not cover the harder part of the syllabus because it had not yet been taught.

This wasn’t the case in our situation. It was a full paper. The school is clearly thinking it ought not to have reset the grade boundaries.