GCSE results: the final countdown & your grade boundary predictions

[inbetweeners]

DC has not been worried about results at all (at least not yet), phew, but the more experienced on here might know when nerves are most likely to kick in (night before?)!

I know it's a 'how long is a piece of string' query, but based on your own anecdotal experience, what you've read and/or your professional knowledge (if relevant), where do you think grade boundaries will fall this year compared with those in 2022 and 2019 and earlier (attached table of some of the exam grade boundaries back to 2017)?

Of course I know the official line, so this is just a 'finger in the air' sort of question, really. I don't need anyone to paraphrase what has already been explained and communicated by Ofqual.

Just a simple vote - bearing in mind your own experiences, what you've read/heard about the cohort, IB and other already released results in context of the (lack of) support and challenges in terms of attainment due to the lockdowns etc:

E.g. please state:
'More like 2019'
'Between the results of 2019 and 2022'
'More like 2018'
'Between the results of 2022 and 2018'

Etc

Please don't shoot me down as I know this is highly unscientific (and depends on so many factors, e.g. exam board, difficulty, cohort etc etc). Just a distraction during the wait until results day. :)

I work in education and I would say like 2019 plus a bit more generous. For A level the expectation is if they return to strict 2019 then the universities may be a bit more generous in accepting lower grades than offers made. IB has been a shock as so many dc have missed their uni offers due to IB points awarded being lower than expected but in some cases the uni's are saying hold on until A levels are out and we will let you know then.
Overall like with IB if there is a big change it will be the whole cohort effected and entry to sixth forms will take this into account, ie flexibility with needing a 7 to study a subject at A level etc. Just like uni's, sixth forms need to fill their courses too.

@tennissquare That's interesting. I was thinking 2019 but more generous, but then when I looked at 2017/2018 (soon after reformed), they were lower so wondered whether 2019 didn't seem to have unusually high boundary levels?

It will be interesting whether there is more variation amongst the GCSE vs iGCSEs (latter being mainly in private schools where they presumably were better set up initially for remote schooling).

Purely anecdotal from colleagues who are exam marking- they have predicted the boundaries will be lower as they have seen fewer high quality responses across all the papers. Wondering if this is related to going back to the full spec with a cohort which was still impacted by covid...

@Bobbybobbins , that's interesting, yes definitely so many gaps from missing lesson time and teachers having to catch up on missed curriculum. Plus poor learning skills amongst year 11 pupils, in a well regarded state comprehensive near me year 11 have had no penalty (ie detention) for not doing home work, some of the pupils have never worked outside the classroom yet sat 8 x GCSEs this summer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53682466
This suggests slightly more lenient than pre-pandemic.

I think that if this keeps you happy then go for it.

But it is total speculation. depends on so many things, I'm doing my best to ignore it all. (DD, 18, still looking for her maths pass.)

They're aiming for the same numbers at each grade as pre-pandemic, however the likelihood is that the children won't be as well prepared so the actual boundaries will be lower.

So, for example, if you have 1000 people sitting the exam and you give 10% a top grade. In 2019 you might have had marks 85-100% as the top 10% (100 people). This year it might be the top 10% of marks range from 75-95%.
So the same number of people get the top grade but the number of marks you have to achieve it is lower.

However they never can tell. It might be that one of the papers is actually easier than 2019, so the top 100 people in marks terms do better, so you need to get 90% at least to be in the top 10%.

For my ds I have absolutely no idea how he may do, and I suspect the teachers have a better idea, but still are at sea to a certain extent.

I predict that there will be delighted children whose teachers have predicted very conservatively, using grade boundaries from 2019. And also devastated children, especially those who used 2022 grade boundaries to predict grades.
However both are true every year. Normally the papers choose to report of the amazing ones-the triplets who got 103 grade 9s between them all leaping in the air However on any year they could choose to focus on the disappointed ones. In 2020 they chose to focus on the disappointed ones, but they could have chosen to highlight those who were delighted-and I'm sure there were just as many as most years. That's how they manipulate people's opinions.
I shall be interested to see which side they choose to focus on this year.

@Bobbybobbins very interesting indeed!
@tennissquare yes, exactly this.
I was thinking that maybe independents had a slight advantage in that they, from what I heard, were providing fairly good coverage remotely from fairly early on. But then I understand, many indies teach the GCSE curriculum over three years (let's not discuss the ins and outs of 2 v 3 years here), presumably these schools would not be as well prepared for delivering a GCSE course over 2 years so maybe some indies will be hit slightly too. Either way, there is no doubt this cohort has been affected and I think a lot of the content in Y9 - during the height of Covid - is never going to be as well taught remotely as in the class room so I'm sure there will be gaps.

Maybe my call would be somewhere between 2018 and 2022 (of course all depends on the difficulty of the paper - haven't yet got a feel what the teachers thought about the test this year v others).

@MargaretThursday thanks, yes very true - papers do steer the focus for us, don't they?

That's meant to say 'between 2017 and 2022'.