GCSE Grades in 2016 and before

[Daogroupie]

She is. dds are looking forward to meeting her. First one to come from a comprehensive school and first to be open about being in a same sex relationship.

I will be very interested to hear what they think of her. DG

[loobylou]

Ds also very keen to meet her. She is apparently going to debate club but I am not sure that she will get much challenge there. It sounds as though debate club does not reflect the politics of the majority of the school very well
Dg, your dd was awesome last night; it was such a lovely evening.

[Daogroupie]

dd1 is part of the group showing her round for their year. She is very keen to meet her as she is so unrepresentative of many of the other senior figures in terms of background and lifestyle. She once said in an interview that Ed Balls was the person she most wanted to meet as she wanted to tell him what it was like having to be in a class with students who didn't want to learn.

Her year group has been very impacted by the changes in exams but you can't blame Justine Greening for that.

I would like to hear her take on what they are expecting with the new English and Maths gradings this year.

On last night thank you, very nerve racking. She was happy with it and I was greatly, greatly relieved when it was over. it will be your dd up there in four years time. DG

[Guest55]

This week the "pass" has been changed from a 5 to a 4 (if I've read this correctly)

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/edu ... ss-summer/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not especially helpful it seems to me.

No, a 'good pass' has been set to a 5 for some time - a 4 is still equivalent to a grade C. I posted this ages ago ..

[tiffinboys]

For too long schools' performance has been measured on 'A*-C' grades, allowing many poor schools to go under radar. Incentivizes schools to work on grade D to move to grade C and overlooking grade Bs to move to grade A or A*.

I think it is time now to also use 6-9 grades for few years, and then further strengthening the performance measure to 7-9, which will force schools leaderships to work harder.

[loobylou]

This week the "pass" has been changed from a 5 to a 4 (if I've read this correctly)

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/edu ... ss-summer/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not especially helpful it seems to me.

No, a 'good pass' has been set to a 5 for some time - a 4 is still equivalent to a grade C. I posted this ages ago ..

I was aware that a 4 was equivalent to a C but I understood (maybe wrongly) that employers were being advised that a 5 was what they needed to look for in terms of a "pass". I wasn't aware that the powers-that-be had (before this week) confirmed that a 4 was still a pass and that only grades 1,2 and 3 were not passes.

[loobylou]

For too long schools' performance has been measured on 'A*-C' grades, allowing many poor schools to go under radar. Incentivizes schools to work on grade D to move to grade C and overlooking grade Bs to move to grade A or A*.

I think it is time now to also use 6-9 grades for few years, and then further strengthening the performance measure to 7-9, which will force schools leaderships to work harder.

That's a crazy idea. Many schools are rightly proud of the numbers of students they manage to get from a D to a C, potentially transforming that child's life chances. No matter how hard those teachers/SLTs work, those children will never ever manage to get a 6 or 7 and they should not feel that they are failures for not doing so (the children; hopefully the teachers never do feel that). They should be praised and applauded for getting their C or 5 or 4 or whatever they get.
Of course there are children who coast along and don't get what they are capable of - in every school environment - but many schools work very hard to push their students to get the best that they can.
I agree that the A*-C measure is a poor one, but mainly because it does't take into account the baseline. In a school where their inclusive policies mean that they are very popular with families with children with significant SENs (for example) the A*-C numbers might look low but they might be the "hardest working" SLTs/teachers who are striving to help their students achieve well. My dh teaches a class of 30 where 10 children have the modern equivalent of statements and 2 of those are non-verbal (one cannot write his/her name, the other has just learned to do that) - however hard he and his SLT work they are not going to get those kids to a level 4 - or even to a level 1 in some cases.
Looking at children getting 7-9 possibly tells you how well schools teach the most able children. It certainly tells you nothing about how they teach the rest of them.

[tiffinboys]

I agree with most of what you wrote about SEN children etc and needs to be excluded from the performance measure. But you might also agree that just A*-C as performance measure is too poor measure and also risk complacency on the part of SLT. Perhaps 6-9 measure would help shake things a bit. Focus on primary schools may also improve, if children are coming to Secondary schools with lower achievement than expected.

Would Value Added measure be continuing under new grade system? Might be useful as well.

[Guest55]

Since September 2012 Ofsted have focused on progress not attainment - that is the best measure for the effectiveness of a school.

It would be good if some off-topic posts were removed from a thread about GCSEs ....

[Eccentric]

I found this article helped my understanding of the new GCSE grades
http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/best-practice/g ... l-facts-1/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;