How is it possible to get A* or A grades - tiffin school

[harrow123]

As we all know Tiffin (boys/girls) is highly performing as per the league tables.

Looking at 2010 Tiffin boy results (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... -school.do" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

A levels: 67% of the exams awarded A*/A grades

GCSE: 85% of the exams awarded A*/A grades

I don't believe that a child passing 11+ does not mean he/she is intelligent/bright/clever/hardwork. children are being stretched for 11+ so they are doing goood in test , who ever does best relatively they get into school. But I am sure some children are really intelligent/bright/clever, not sure how do we measure though

But what is the mystery behind getting A*/A grades?

are the children being stretched throught the school life so they perform well in exams.
are they being trained/guided very well
are they getting lot of home work repeatedly till they achieve good understanding on subjects
are the children very very busy all the days doing homeworks

Do these children understand the concepts of maths/science etc subjects , or they are just trained to get only grades then children forgetting everything after exams.

or is it easy to get A*/A grades in exams ?

thoughts please

[yoyo123]

a bit of all of those.....

hard work, attention to detail. Help in exam technique and how to answer questions properly.

My daughter had all As ( before intro of A star) I know that she put in a tremendous amount of work. The school was very supportive, she did practice papers as part of her revision, took them into school where the teacher went over them and showed her where she could have expanded her answer...given extra evidence etc. 'Natural' intelligence is part of it, but preparation, hard work, good teaching and a willingness to learn are also important.

[Doblinski]

My experience of teaching GCSE as it was, (ie with a large amount of pre-assessed coursework but is steering back towards largely exam based work again) it's a two way thing between student and teaching.

Student is given clear outlines of what they need to do, student works very hard and does all those things to the very best of their ability to get top marks ; to clarify, the subject is broken down into areas of study which carries so many marks say 35 marks for topic A, 25 for topic B and say 40 for the exam. If the student gets the top marks in all topic areas and the exam then they get an A* if they lose a few marks because they did not give their own opinion on something or they produced less compelling back-up work, it's an A, and if they did a little less well and lost a few more marks it's a B and so on.

I was really impressed by a friend who's DD was doing OK in Maths at GCSE then the mum got hold of the syllabus for that course. Mum looked at how the marks were allocated exactly, and tailored DDs work to answer just those specific question to that level and no more - result she got top marks in her coursework and an A* but it helped that Mum had maths degree too im sure .

[harrow123]

is there any mapping between grades to marks

like if above 95% then A*, 90-95% is A, 80-90% is B grade or it is not like that.

so has child has to do lot of continous hard work to acheive highest grades, ofcourse generally true. but i am surprised schools like Tiffin/Qeboys/reading boys produce consistently around 90% of A*/A grades. looks like teachers are highly motivated and hard working as well, as they are the ones who spend their time with children and make them to do hard work

most of the parents may help children only in doing thier homework, and getting them extra tutored before exams probably.

what kind of contribution expected from parents for an average child to get A*/A grades ?. i beleive most of the children are average children (except gifted/talented) unless they are stretched to work upto their potential

[hermanmunster]

The A level grades are based on the total of UMS points the candidate gets in categories A B C D etc, The actual number varies by subject and board and is the sum of the modules they have done. You can look them up. I believe an A* is awarded if they get above a certain number in ALL their modules.

[la boume]

Students have been selected at the first place, it is easier for teachers to work with bright, focused, deducated children. But even at Tiffins they got several Ds and Es.

[harrow123]

The A level grades are based on the total of UMS points the candidate gets in categories A B C D etc, The actual number varies by subject and board and is the sum of the modules they have done. You can look them up. I believe an A* is awarded if they get above a certain number in ALL their modules.

Can you elaborate more please or please give me any link where I can get more info on this

I did not do schooling in this country so new to this system, I learning as my kids go through their schooling here

thanks for the help

[harrow123]

Students have been selected at the first place, it is easier for teachers to work with bright, focused, deducated children. But even at Tiffins they got several Ds and Es.

Interesting ...

Is there any table which gives us information as to grades obtained by each student. student name may be confidential.

Many school results that they publish on thier websites is based subjects, not seen anywhere grades recd by each student or top students

[hermanmunster]

The A level grades are based on the total of UMS points the candidate gets in categories A B C D etc, The actual number varies by subject and board and is the sum of the modules they have done. You can look them up. I believe an A* is awarded if they get above a certain number in ALL their modules.

Can you elaborate more please or please give me any link where I can get more info on this

I did not do schooling in this country so new to this system, I learning as my kids go through their schooling here

thanks for the help

Hi - shouldn't use not being at school in this country as an excuse for not understanding the system! those of us who went to school in the UK are just as confused to start with !
Believe me it as completely changed since we did it ourselves! We have to learn as we go along and our kids know far more about it than we do ... better that way!

Have a read of these:
http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/U ... EAFLET.PDF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; about the UMS

Some of the grade boundaries for modules
http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/A ... JUNE10.PDF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[harrow123]

The A level grades are based on the total of UMS points the candidate gets in categories A B C D etc, The actual number varies by subject and board and is the sum of the modules they have done. You can look them up. I believe an A* is awarded if they get above a certain number in ALL their modules.

Can you elaborate more please or please give me any link where I can get more info on this

I did not do schooling in this country so new to this system, I learning as my kids go through their schooling here

thanks for the help

Hi - shouldn't use not being at school in this country as an excuse for not understanding the system! those of us who went to school in the UK are just as confused to start with !
Believe me it as completely changed since we did it ourselves! We have to learn as we go along and our kids know far more about it than we do ... better that way!

Have a read of these:
http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/U ... EAFLET.PDF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; about the UMS

Some of the grade boundaries for modules
http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/A ... JUNE10.PDF" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

THANKS