In a class of 30 doing GCSE Art, how many would you expect to get 7,8 or 9?

[RollsBapsCobs]

My daughter did Art for GCSEs. She did the exam yesterday and today and the teacher suggested she will get a grade 6.
My daughter (not the sort to brag) believes she is one of the best in the class of 30 at Art and works really hard at it.
It it sounds like nobody will get more than a grade 6.
Does that seem unusual to you?

I guess I'm just wondering if my daughter's teacher is a particularly hard marker or maybe Art is quite difficult at GCSE level.
My daughter wants to do it for A level but I'm not sure it's wise choice if she gets a 6 at GCSE.
(I do understand a sample of students work is checked by someone external.)

Anecdotally I have heard it is very hard to get the top grades for art both at gcse and A Level. I don't know why that is though. Maybe because of the volume of work that needs to be produced, or maybe because the requirements of the course sometimes clash with kids' expectations?

25 years ago Art was a notoriously difficult GCSE to get a top mark in, as it was so subjective. I didn't take it , but most of my friends did, and they spent almost as much time on Art coursework as the other 9 GCSEs put together (and mostly got B and C).

I'm a bit surprised that the teacher has suggested a grade as I would assume the pieces/marking needs to be moderated?

When I did art GCSE it was almost all As with the odd B. It did take as much time as all of my other GCSEs put together.

It may depend on how well the teachers know how to play the game. I taught (not art) for a few years and went on a training course about how to get students through coursework, run by the exam board. The trainer said that all of her students would get an A in coursework, even if they would fail their other exams. Our coursework grades went up 2 grades on average after I went on the course, because I better understood how to play the game. It sounds wrong, but that's how it works and a good reason to get rid of coursework in most subjects.

DD did Art GCSE and she thinks possibly half the class got 7,8 and 9s. She thinks (and I agree it was similar in the 1990s) that some pupils chose art because they thought it would be easy and was easier to muck around/not do anything in lessons...but obviously those are not the majority.

DD was predicted 7 all the way through GCSE, and the teachers emphasised almost no one got 9s...but in the end she did get a 9. However this was covid cohort and there was no exam. She's currently in a class of less than 10 pupils at A level and she thinks none will get A*. She is predicted an A/B.

Agree with the time factor as well, some of her coursework pieces have taken 20 hrs + which I just can't envisage spending on other subjects.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/gcse-results-2021-art-design-subjects-compare-2020-breakdown-tables-grade/#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20grade%209,results%20tables%20by%20subject%20here

This suggests about 30% in Art and design - not sure if that's grouped subjects or a slightly different GCSE tho.

Well it depends on the academic level of the school as well.
Art is a very popular option at DD's school - so that students taking it have a very wide range of abilities. A lot of those students do it because they think it will be an easy option, but to get a high grade you have to do a high degree of analysis and produce some decent writing as well as the art work.

In DD's year she only knows of a handful of students that got high grades - so maybe 3 or 4 in a class of 30?

Very, very few.

Equally, few below a 5 (only those who refused point blank to do the work and their books were a complete mess) - but no, even the best artist can struggle to get a higher mark because the biggest challenge is linking the work and its development clearly to the stimulus - and, unfortunately, sometimes the best artist can also be so confident in their abilities that they refuse to see how the work as a whole, including the linking, can be linked.

It's not just about the good picture, it's the boring stuff that gets the higher marks.

Surely it massively depends - and on so many factors?

Art is a tough subject to take unless you love it - it's generally agreed to be a thief of time.

Factors that might change the answer to your question @RollsBapsCobs include:

• Overall ability of cohort
• Types of students taking art
• Art's profile within the school
• Quality of art teachers

For example, in the school I taught in (not art!) it was a popular choice bc the dept was very good with an excellent HoD. She would often work with the weaker students who chose it to get them their best grade overall - but this might well be a C or a D. I had a student taking MFL with me who really struggled and gained a D among many Ds - their only C was in art. So it was valid and valuable, but I suspect the numbers of high grades might have been lower than, for example, triple science.

TBH OP I think that a group of 30 where no one gains above a 6 is either a weaker group in general (quite possible as I say, if weaker students feel encouraged to take art or even if the year group is weaker overall) or has a poor teacher or teachers.

We used to have a real range of abilities taking MFL, from A-star to E or even F; but within the group of (say) 60 taking German, there would certainly be a number of A-stars and As.

Edited for typos

Dd did art gcse in one year in year 10.
She said there were 20 students in her cohort (only one group) and in the end 2 students got a 9 (she was one of them ❤️😊).
sadly it has put her off a level art. She is grateful she did it last year when she didn’t have to consider all the other subjects for exams as she knows her final result would have been different. She dedicated hours and hours to it for months upon end.

According to this, 25% of students get 7 or above. https://results.ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/gcse/art-and-design-subjects.php?v=20230817

We had 5/21 last year. 10 6s.

Hard to say and not really relevant but late 90s, loads of As and Bs in our class. Must have had close to 30 students. Our art teachers were outstanding though, many happy memories of lunchtimes spent in the art studios listening to the charts and working on some project or other. State school as well.

It is the thief of time but one less subject to revise for at the end. DS in year 10-predicted a 7-8. Just picked his new topic, and seems to have picked well as his teacher says that it plays to his strengths so fingers crossed 🤞

Depends on the cohort and how high achieving the rest of the class is a 6 is a B so sounds middle of the road but is still a great grade. At the school I taught at 5/6 students got 8 and 9s across the board but most got lower, the general attainment was low though as we were in a disadvantaged area with much higher than average SEND.

No one in DD's class of 30 got a 9. DD scraped an 8. It was a huge amount of work. DD is very good at art and wanted to be an architect but was put off doing art A-level based on the GCSE experience. I found it bizarre how hard it was compared to other GCSEs. She did absolutely minimal revision for RE and got a high 9. For me, both are examples of the GCSE process not really working.

If GCSE art is the same as when i did it at scool (2005/6) its a ballache. The most artistically gifted children got average grades because of how much work went into one assignment.

Youre given a task (this is just made up example i cant remember a real one) - A mouse took a stroll through the woods in a tim burton style .

Research tim burton and his style, print off what you like/dont like, what you use as reference. What idea comes to your mind about the task - sketch it- label it- give brief description of each component- how are you going to do it ? Paint? Pencil? Why? Why not? You would then for this example paint a brown mouse, then have to write about do you like it? Why/why not? Then you would have to do it again but with a white mouse, explain is this what your going to do in your final bit. And repeat for every variation, so a brown mouse in pencil an white mouse in pencil, a brown mouse in crayon a white mouse in crayon. Then onto the other parts of the piece, the wood, what colour? And then all the variations and explanations as to why not them colours.

There is so much prep work, i loved art as a heres a style and a subject crack on, didnt like it as far as GCSE prep work goes.

Art at GCSE and A level is hard. It's not just about the artwork, there's a lot of research and written work that has to go into it too. This has to be presented in a certain way otherwise it can bring the grade down. My DD was always a 9/A grade for her actual art/drawing, but struggled more with the written elements. Her final grades were 6/B.

If GCSE art is the same as when i did it at scool (2005/6) its a ballache. The most artistically gifted children got average grades

This is a common misunderstanding about GCSE Art. It's not about being a talented artist. My DD, who considers herself a good but not amazing artist, was shocked when she got a 9, and much better artists got more mediocre grades.

DD wasn't the best artist but she was the best at pulling togther information, critical writing and presenting her findings. That's why English SATS are often used as a predictor for Art GCSE (which is something I never understood until actually seeing how the results were graded).

That is super interesting @SausageinaBun My DS in y10 has two course work GCSE. I would love to learn how to support him more. Can you please share your top tips?

OP, sorry to hijack your thread. My son struggles with art and the teacher told th that in their year, c20, the grades would probably be distributed with 2 x 4, 2 x 5 and the 2 x 8 and 1 x 9. Everything else in the middle.

@GrumpyMuleFan - most of it wasn't actually changing what the students did. It was partly that there is a tolerance when your marking is moderated. You could grade up to one grade either side of the moderated grade and not have the grades changed. For us that meant we were marking a bit harshly and not being upgraded on moderation (the head of department was a bit of a dragon), but we moved to marking more leniently, but within the tolerance, so our more lenient marking wasn't challenged. The other bit was referring to exemplar marked work from the exam board in our marking, not just the mark scheme. Often the mark scheme said you needed 6 items in a section, but their exemplar marked work only had 4 of the items and was awarded full marks. I hadn't understood how it was possible to squeeze everything ftom the mark scheme into the word count, but the answer was that it wasn't possible or necessary.

I'm not sure that can really help a student/parent as it is about teachers playing the game. But all of the mark schemes and requirements are probably on the exam board website - so you could read them and see whether the coursework looks like it will tick the boxes.

In 1988 the first year of GCSE's, no one in my year passed art GCSE at grade C or above. No one.
Maybe because the art teacher was too busy playing rock music and focusing on his own work during classes.

I'm so bored i just googled the grade distribution for the aqa art gcse last year.

Seemed to suggest 20% grades 7-9, so in a 'perfect' class id go with 6 pupils getting more than a 6.

But thats a bit silly as things never quite work out in real life

Well, in the school I know best, last year 69% of pupils got a 9, 27% got an 8 and 4% got a 7. Cohort of around 50.

I don’t know much about art grades these days but both my parents and DB are better artists than I am painting and drawing wise.

When I was in one secondary school back in 1980s my best friend there was great at art, predicted to get the best grade and was teacher’s pet. The male art teacher was a right old pervert though taking underage students to pubs and dating them, he was at least 40 or 30 plus. It really put me off trying hard there as he’d touch girls up including me and make inappropriate comments and I thought I wasn’t great at art as a result.

Then I went to a private school for a few years and we had your typical boho woman art teacher who actually encouraged me and gave me attention. I passed GCSE with what was then a B pass. She’d told me if I’d been there longer with her I’d have probably have got an A.

The right teacher really does help.