Y11 2023/24 thread 5 - results!

[Techno56]

New thread as no 4 is nearly full

Very well said @EdithBond. Thank you.

Surprise 6 in maths the highlight of the day here! DD got higher in a couple of other subjects but can't stop smiling and talking about the maths, incredibly proud of her.

@Decoart
Well done to your ds. Sounds like a tough year for all. Hope DD is improving. I'd imagine it's a long road.

DS had 5 7s in triple science Maths and Geography 6 Electronics 5s English and Computer science just missed grade boundary by 1 or 2 marks on 3 papers on flip side he was bang on grade boundary 1 abs just over by 2 marks on another. Not asking for scripts as I don't want him to feel his marks weren't good enough. Plus would have traded a couple of grades to get that English.
For those who did not get the marks they wanted you will get there for some the path is just a little longer. My DB left with not a single GCSE now he has a degree and a professional on £70k.

Is this AQA by any chance? We have heard nothing from our school but the grades were lower than expected for several kids. Thanks

Is this because of the subjective nature of the subject?

Seems from the messages I’ve read English language grades have been lower than expected for many? My DS was predicted an 8, came out with a 6, he was picking it for A-level but based on his results he has picked Geography instead, 7. I’m wondering if he’s been too hasty based on the many messages I’ve seen about English language.Doesn’t help it’s the only one we don’t have an actual grade for!

No. It's because of the OFQUAL rules about reviewing.

We were seeing students who were getting nines across-the-board get 4s in English?!

@mightyducks you don't have a grade???

I wonder if they meant mark. You don’t get an actual mark for Eng lang, well not with our exam board any way. They had a grade, it was 6.

I think that’s unfair at a grade boundary but who am I to say

You do. The school just can't easily make it fit in the results slip because there are too many pieces of data.

Grade boundaries are irrelevant to marking and to reviewing though. I have no idea what grades the candidates I'm working on are getting. It's just about applying the mark scheme.

It was specifically brought in to try to level the playing field.

Sorry yes, I meant a mark, the only one we have no mark for is English language, just has a ‘D’ after it

Yes, because there are 3 bits of data - the grade, the mark and the speaking endorsement. We have to report the grade and the speaking, but SIMS doesn't work with 3 bits of data, so that gets missed.

School will have it, plus a lot more. I spent a lot of this morning telling kids their marks.

We got marks for every paper, which is interesting reading! The surprise 5 in Spanish makes more sense when you read the marks (he got a 3 in his mocks)

I meant on the slip we are given.

Thank you, it was off the table for next year as the most important thing now is getting her strong again and working on her self esteem. The most concerning part is no one could see just how much she was struggling. Your suggestions are really helpful.

Yes he did I realised after I posted it says sports tech award.

DD was predicted 9 in eng lang and got a 6. She got a D for spoken element. And got 8 in mocks.

She's very disappointed, particularly as she thought both papers had gone extremely well, but I'm trying to get her to focus on it being a great grade.

Yep, ds and his friends straight 8’s in mocks and 5’s today. There was even a 4. The teacher is wondering what on earth went wrong. I remember it being similar last year.

To buck the English language trend ds got
2 9s
2 8s
4 7s
2 6s
One of the 9s was Eng lang and was a surprise. He had got a 6 or 7 in mocks.

There definitely is hope for those DC who didn't get as expected, esp at the lower end. My friends DS I mentioned earlier got a 4 in Eng Lang, 3, 2 in Science and 2s in everything else, they went to their college appt expecting to only get on a L1 (which is what the website states) but they are on a L2 in Criminology and Psychology which is great for them. Not all 16 yos are ready for the level of work involved in A levels so hopefully by the time the L3 course comes round they will smash it.

I am so happy for my DS, he has so many additional needs that to get the results he needs plus an apprenticeship (which now he can move onto higher levels with the grades he got) is amazing. 4s would have been perfect, 5s he is so pleased with. It does get to me when I hear people saying how disappointed they are with an 8 rather than a 9 as I know DS could study 10 hrs a day and never achieve that but I have to remind myself that it's al relative.

The Eng lang exam with the huge discrepancies, what exam board is that? My DSs school do Cambridge which is 50% coursework, absolute game changer for them I think.