GCSE predicted grades in Y10

[mrsconradfisher]

Got DS’s report today, helpfully at 5pm on the last day of half term! He’s fairly bright, more so towards English but is incredibly sporty and knowledgeable about PE/Sport in general. None of his GCSE predicted grades were a huge surprise, his science level was lower than I’d like but it had been brought down by his Chemistry grade which he finds tough going. It’s his PE predicted grade which has shocked both of us. His older brother is at Loughborough doing Sports Science, so we’ve been through GCSE and A level PE before, DS2 is head and shoulders above DS1 in terms of sporting ability and not far behind him in terms of PE knowledge needed for exams etc. To the extent he was working with DS1 over Christmas revising for some of DS1’s exams!! However he has been predicted a 4 for GCSE. This is a child who plays 2 sports at a high level as well and scored over 90% on his recent assessment. It makes absolutely no sense. DS said the highest anyone has been predicted in the whole cohort was a 5 and that child plays for a Cat 1 Academy.

I could understand it if the other predicted grades were low and may have thought they were low as they haven’t covered the content yet but it’s very noticeably lower than all of the other grades. We have got parents evening in a couple of weeks and I will of course ask then but I’m totally confused and really worried as his whole life, career aspirations involve PE and sport.

Maybe email his teacher and ask them to help you understand?
Yes, you may not get a reply immediately, but probably more use than a thread here?

We aren’t allowed to email teachers directly. There is no way to do it and no email address either, hence why I posted on here to see if anyone had a similar experience.

You might not be able to email teachers directly but you should have an 'enquiries' email at the school which you should be able to email and have your query passed onto the appropriate person.

Well yes I could email the school office which is the only means of communication we have but the school is now shut for the next 9 days so nobody is going to pass that message on and in the meantime I wondered if anyone else had experienced this…you know like “oh yes my daughter had similar grade predictions as PE is usually predicted low” sort of thing.

Predicted grades are usually generated by FFT aspire based on KS2 performance.

Adding to this...and they cannot give any indication as to sporting ability, they can only go on the scientific side of the qualification from his KS2 Maths/reading or if the school has chosen it (to include all of those who did not take SATs due to EHE, private education or not being in the country), CAT4 scores.

Not necessarily, and they certainly shouldn't be!

My school's predicted grades are set by the teacher based on actual performance. FFT grades are given as targets not predictions.

That makes complete sense, and yes I realised they could quantify sporting abilty it was more to demonstrate he has a good sport background rather than just a random choice of GCSE PE.
His KS2 SATs were good, nearly GD across the board. Think he got 109, 109, 108. His English predicted Grades are both 8’s. Maths is a 6. Which is why I don’t understand where this random 4 has come from.
Not that a 4 would matter in another subject, he’d be lucky to get that in French! But PE is genuinely his strongest subject.

It does depend upon whether it's actually his aspirational target, a predicted grade or whether it's reflecting the grade/progress he has reached after his first 13 or so weeks - if it's the latter, getting a 4 is not a bad thing at this stage and almost everybody getting a 4 now will improve significantly over the course of study (particularly if they also lean towards summer sports instead of winter ones or are still in the process of building their fitness levels after a significant break in training - like the summer holidays/end of seasons).

The thing with PE is that it is essentially a brand new subject at GCSE - it goes into far greater depth in some aspects of science than the actual science lessons do, for a start.

It's worth talking to his PE teacher - him doing it in particular, it's such a demanding qualification that it needs to have the student fully engaged and motivated - and finding out for certain, so he can see exactly where he is doing well and where he needs to improve, whether it's attitude, performance or knowledge/examination skills.

I always think that it's one of the most challenging subjects because it requires continual commitment, physical ability, making choices about activity, food, rest outside the classroom, teamworking, scientific knowledge, literacy, numeracy and so much adaptability. It's never an easy choice.

Thank you so much for the incredibly detailed reply, that’s really helpful. I actually didn’t think of it like that, I was just comparing it to his other subjects but of course it’s essentially a brand new subject so logically it will be a lower predicted grade at this moment in time , it could also explain why the highest person in the class only got predicted a 5. I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that.
DS1 is 6 years older and they did 3 year GCSE courses then so they actually started at the beginning of Year 9, by this point in Year 10 they already been doing it if it nearly 18 months.

My dd did GCSE Pe, and amongst her friends who were all very sporty (county level runners and swimmers) their final grades matched exactly to their biology result- so I’d use that prediction as the likely result.

If his science grades are lower then that will feed into it. PE GCSE surprised me in how im depth it is into human physiology and anatomy.

The exam board our school used only gives 20% for NEA and assessed 3 sports for that 20%. So I can see it is hard to achieve good grades based on sporting ability. The majority is based on the end of course exams.

Grades for practical aspects can be misleading early in the course. The PE teacher’s never saw my teen doing their chosen sports until they submitted video evidence in Yr11. In practical classes teen got mediocre marks. When it was finally assessed, their video evidence was just one mark off a maximum score.

Has he done any theory assessments yet? Coursework? 60% of the grade is theory & 10% coursework so whilst high level sporting ability is amazing it might not have been fully assessed yet especially if it is out of school sports. (eg dd has been assessed on badminton/netball/trampolining in school and those without knee injury have done rock climbing as well but has not been assessed on football which she plays out of school yet)
Not sure there is a uniform approach across schools for predicted grades so need to ask teacher via office or better still get your son to find out himself?

He is doing combined science, in his school only the top 20 students in the year are allowed to take triple science. His Biology grade is good, but the physics/chemistry part has pulled it down if that makes sense as with combined science you apparently get an average of all 3? To give you an idea of his ability, he got 89% in his Biology exam and then I think around 40% in Physics and 30% in Chemistry so there is a big disparity.
I absolutely understand how much science PE GCSE involves, DS1 did GCSE PE, A-Level PE and is now doing Sports Science at Uni so under no illusions at how hard the content is but it’s just not something he’s ever found particularly challenging. Will have to hold on until after half term and see what they say.

Could it be the grade he is currently working at, so what they’d expect him to achieve if he sat his GCSE PE next week, rather than his predicted grade?

Tbh OP, if parents' evening is in a couple of weeks, there's no point in speculating about it all right now - his teachers will be able to clarify everything and give good advice when you see them. I'm not sure why you think it's so unhelpful of them to give out reports/predicted grades at the end of the last day before half term. It's only a week's holiday, with parents' evening almost straight after.

We’ve just had a year 10 report for DD and her grades vary. Some seem to be based on if you sit the exam tomorrow, you’d get this as we’ve not done most of the syllabus, others seem to be if you get similar marks in the rest of the syllabus you’d get this. We’re warned about this in the letter that comes home. (Some teachers also seem much more cautious than others) In our case her music grade is much lower than everything else, but that is because she’s not had some of the course assessed as they’ve mainly been doing listening and composition - she’s expecting and her teacher is expecting her to get a high grade. I wouldn’t worry about it, and your son may know if you ask, or check at parents evening.

OP - we had similar with another less-academic/more practical subject. Fortunately it was a few weeks ago so DC had chance to ask the teacher who (in a roundabout way) said it was a guess and everyone had been given the same (a grade 5) as they were too early to predict more accurately (although somehow the other subjects had managed it…). It also said that DC had a grade 5 in the exams last term, when he’d got 98%, so I was a bit skeptical about all of it.

So you’re absolutely right to ask to speak to the teacher (I would say that you were surprised at his grade and ask what you can do to help him improve) but I wouldn’t worry about it in the meantime.