Is it normal for GCSE's to be sat at the end of Year 9?

[adelicatequestion]

DD school is planning for 2 or 3 GCSE's to be sat in a year at the end of yr9 and another 2/3 at teh end of yr 10 and then some in yr 11. They could end up with about 15 GCSE's.

So questions

Why?
Is it done elsewhere? It's new to me
Aren't they too young?
Will it compromise grades?
Is that many GCSE's really necessary?

Gosh I have lots of questions.

We have an info evening soon and I want to be ready with teh pro's and cons of this.

they can retake certain modules?! WTF. Not in my day. Not sure I like that.

dd1 took her first science modules last term. despite the fact that she got an A* the school are suggesting she resits the module to get a higher score - the advice they give to everyone who got less than 49/50. it all seems daft to me - i would have thought she would do better spending time on the rest of the syllabus but i'm not going to go against the school's advice.

That is ludicrous.

When is any college/university gong to look at an A* and say

"Now little jemima, was that A* a 49/50 or a 50/50"

What a complete and utter waste of chidrens time and teacher time. I would raise merry hell if they asked my dd to do that.

My son has the same problem, he is resitting his Biology paper on Thursday as he only got an A. I could (perhaps) understand if he was going on to study science at A level, but he isn't!

Where has the world of education gone wrong?

Why are we putting our children through pressure to get 100%?

We are setting them up for psychological problems later on.

I can see the reasoning behind it - the first papers are easier and children generally get lower marks on the later papers which can often bring their overall result down (this only applies if they are doing seperate science GCSEs, not science and additional science). If they resit the earlier papers to get the highest score possible on those 'easy' points then that may boost their final grade or give them more scope for messing up their last paper and still doing OK. Schools do the same thing with resiting AS modules which are worth the same as A2 ones but are easier.

It really depends whether or not they 'need' a particular grade for their chosen career or not I think. Some schools do seem to recommend more resits than necessary though - to resit when you already have 48/50 seems likely to be a waste of time, but if you absolutely need an A* then maybe it's worth it?

Just as a thought - suppose a school has found that a child getting 48/50 on paper 1 will on average get 45/50 on paper 2 and 40/50 on paper 3 and assuming 45/50 for the ISA - that totals 178/200 = (180 = A; 160=A), which isn't an A, let alone the safe A* that you might assume. Is it not then worth resiting paper 1 to get those extra 2 points (especially if the child aspires to something difficult, like vet sci)? Also note that because the points are scaled, to get 50/50 UMS does not need anything like all the questions right on the paper - it's more like getting around 35/45 in raw marks, but varies from year to year & subject to subject.

What is wrong is where a school enters children for resits to boost its own league table results rather than looking at the individual child's circumstances.

Well I not read all of this. Sorry for just jumping in. At our secondary some children do take GCSEs in year 9. It is only the top sets that get the chance to do this.

The top maths sets take GCSE Statistics

The top science sets take moduals in physics, chemistry & biology. This enables them to complete all 3 sciences at gcse but use up only 2 of there options. Others not in the top science sets can still do separate sciences but they will need to use up 3 options....hope this makes sense.

I think they do something similar in english. I've not had one in a top english set yet so I'm not sure what they actually take. DS5 is in the top set in year 8...so maybe next year!

Makes for a good picture in the local paper on results day.....well the parents of the beaming DC think so!