Is grade 9 the new a*

[nowinhouse]

I know when they first changed the grading to 1-9 people said that 7-9 was an A. Does this still hold true? I can see more students are getting a grade 9 now so has that devalued 8's and 7's?

DD is year 10 and just sat her end of
Year exams that in her school are graded like the real thing. She got 5 9's and 5 7's. No 8's interestingly!!

She wants to be a vet so will need the highest grades and i was wondering if the 7's would be enough.

I don't think it helps that schools on results day choose to only publicise the children who have achieved 10 9s or when the TV crews watch all the most academic students open their results. They should be celebrated absolutely but they make it seem like its the norm to get 8s and 9s. Dd was watching a Tiktok where a girl was disappointed because she opened her results and got one 8 grade and the rest 9s, she wanted all 9s.

Dds school has stopped doing this. It annoyed the parents of some who got all 9s but personally I think it is brilliant.

Why are people talking about A** grades? There is no such thing.

A 9 is the top of an A star. An 8 is the bottom of an A star/ top of an A. A 7 is a low to mid A.

That is true though! Of course they all need to keep working hard.

That's the issue though, when staff mislead students (however unintentionally) it can affect their approach to their studies.

If I tell a pupil that their performance on a 2022 paper is a B but was an A in 2017, then I'm misleading them. An A in 2017 is different to an A in 2022 because they're different cohorts sitting different papers. The grade boundaries are different for a reason. It isn't luck of the draw.

If I'm not clear to my student that the reason why the raw mark would have been an A in 2017, but a B in 2022, is because the whole cohort performed lower in 2017, then I'm misleading them.

They can, and do in my experience, leave that conversation with misconceptions which for some students affects their approach to study.

Which is more useful for a student to go away thinking:

"I got a B and want an A but it's ok because in 2017 I'd have got an A so if I get lucky on the boundaries then I'll get my A. I'll focus on my other subjects/don't need to worry too much"

Or

"I got a B and want an A. The boundaries change each year, so if I'm serious about getting an A I need to move my position up in the bell curve so I can maximise the chance of being the right side of the cut off"

I've seen both FWIW.

Your DC sounds very motivated with a supportive parent so isn't as likely to get tripped up as she's probably going to continue working hard, but in my experience unintentional clumsiness when talking about grades does trip some students up.

DD is at a selective grammar. I reckon there's probably half a dozen kids who could get straight 9's. They're very competitive with each other (in quite a good natured way) and yes amongst these kids, and probably their parents they will be delighted to achieve that. Amongst nerdy high achievers getting high marks is high status.
The kid who came top in the 11+ has had this respect from their peers for the whole of the time in school. There is also an equal and opposite movement that brands kids as 'sweats' and 'try hards' although this has pretty much vanished in yr11 😂

Yes it is brilliant but maybe also give a bit of time to someone who's worked so hard to pass as well..

A 7 is not a B+ though, even at worst. It's an A. There is no confusion. Every official piece of literature to come out from the DofE clearly stated that a 7 is equivalent to an A in the previous grading system.

How does the 9-1 GCSE grading system work? - The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk)

I think there should have been

A
A (merit) and
A (distinction)

to avoid devaluing all the other grades.

They don't mention anyone at all. They congratulate everyone who took them. No jumping blondes!

That's sad (about the kid who scored highest in 11+). Jolly glad mine aren't at a grammar tbh. A good few make it to Oxbridge from her school so it's not exactly low achieving.

*I hope the school are managing those expectations.

The first year that 9s were introduced, there were a few hundred out of hundreds of thousands who achieved that. It was under 800 students in total who got 7 or more at grade 9.*

The school encourages them to aspire to a 9 but the feeling of failure is a function of the kids wanting the 'perfect' set of grades.

Looking at the stats, 43 pupils received all 9s last year at our school which is around a quarter of the year. If that's your peer group, that's what many pupils naturally end up comparing themselves against.

Also hard for the current cohort, who may have siblings getting all 9s in the pandemic when the grade boundaries were more generous. Whereas they're being deflated back to normal for the first time since the pandemic this year.

Yes, that's why I worry for the over achievers as the 9s reduce back down again. I suppose they can still compare with their peer group and see that most won't achieve grade 9s any more, but ideally school would also be flagging up the 2019 boundaries and expectations for future.

I don't know about the older siblings. I'm afraid ours get told they were given their grades by their younger sibling - quite rightly really. It's tough for the younger ones but also hard for the older cohort. They are struggling as a group at Uni now.

That's not the system though - that's the expectations put on her by others.

Students need to be aware that if they are getting 7s, 8 and 9s they have done very well and substantially above the norm i.e. to have a view of reality. Schools that seem to regard the grading structure as "9" and "other grades" don't help.

Honestly, as far as thriving at university goes, I'd be more worried about students who are devastated not to get all 9s. That lack of resilience will come back to bite them on the bum once at uni.

It's the whole cohort. Maybe an element of imposter syndrome. They know or suspect they wouldn't have achieved the same high grades under normal exam conditions. Getting high grades doesn't seem to have increased confidence. Covid has certainly messed with that age group a lot. Yes, they got a lot of grade 9s and A * at A level but now they are struggling at uni.

Speak for yourself. Dd got ridiculous top grades in 2021 and is flying at her RG uni, as are her mates.

It's not a personal comment. As a cohort they are a mess and getting worse with every year.

Back in the dark ages, pass grades were 1-6, and 7-9 were fails, 9 being thé bottom, but above unclassified.

Shame they can't leave them alone.

Yeah, I mean, grade inflation is a constant.

A grade 9 isn't nearly as strong as an A was when it first came in (about the top 2-3% of all entries) in 1993 but is definitely stronger than an A was by the time the lettered system ended.

apologies, please disregard the above, my stars were turned into bold text. i meant to say:

Yeah, I mean, grade inflation is a constant.

A grade 9 isn't nearly as strong as an A-star was when it first came in (about the top 2-3% of all entries) in 1993 but is definitely stronger than an A-star was by the time the lettered system ended.

I thought...

7 = A

8 = A*

9 = A**

Also kids should not compare their results to the inflated grades of the last 2 years

Are the grades reverting to 2019 standards now?

They should be...

Do you mean they are, or in your opinion they should?