Now that the Maths team at Edexcel are on Twitter ( @EmporiumMaths ) you can almost guarantee they’ll be the first to tweet out grade boundaries etc which they have done this morning.
So before the barrage of tweets (they’ve already started) and blogs about grade boundaries, grade inflation, higher versus foundation, which exam board was “easier” etc starts I thought I’d get in early so that I can avoid the frenzy if I can… it just makes me go “grrrrrr” and I am waaaaayyyyy too chilled out to start on that route. Let’s consider this post as my way of saying my piece and walking away (that’ll be a first I know!)
But before I start, whether you do or don’t agree with the measures used, schools are measured by performance tables. It’s just the way it is. Whether I think that education should be about getting exam results (I do, in part, in fact if you’re interested!) is a different and an almost pointless discussion because “we have what we have” and changing or influencing any changes is bigger than you or me (unless you’re one of the twitterati or work at the DFE). I’m not saying you give up trying to influence or change the system (never give up!) but it’s not for the here and now in terms of this blog post. It just needs to be remembered that parents send their kids, and students come to school with the expectation that, at the end of 11 years of schooling they will sit exams and it’s all change anyway with progress 8 and attainment 8 and so we should see less importance placed on the traditional A*-C measures and next year it’ll be all over the place anyway with a mixture of grades and numbers.
(1) Grade boundaries Bemoaning the fact that the C grade boundary was “X” and how unfair it was and then producing stats showing grade boundary trends just doesn’t make sense. End of. Of course they are going to fluctuate … the papers differ in terms of difficulty and so you aren’t comparing “like for like”. Again, maybe I’ve missed something here but if it’s an easy paper why wouldn’t the grade boundary be moved? I’d had my money on a C being 67 but Seager said 70 and once again he has beat me in the “guess the boundary” game … yes every year! We are that predictable! I have attached the one sheet, shown at the head of this post ( 2016 – EDEXCEL Grade boundaries inc June 2016 ) I keep that shows the grade boundaries over time – not for tracking them but for the simple reason that they are all in one place when we use past papers for mocks/assessments.
The boundaries are the highest they’ve been (apart from the grade D!) but you have to consider the whole grading system. It is effectively a “zero sum game” and we can never truly show progress nationally whilst we are working on the basis of what the students got back in KS2. It’s a nonsense system and so anyone telling me that its a “disgrace” that only X% get a grade C and above is talking out of their orifice. We can never get 100% getting a “pass”. I know in the ideal world everyone should be aiming for the top grades …. but one step at a time. See! thats the reason I hate these discussions because I can’t help but go off on a tangent!
(2) Exam boards. Saying things like “I should have entered them into X board” is pointless and the only person getting stressed by it is yourself and possibly your head teacher. You used your professional judgement and made the decision at the time based on what you felt was right for your students. Don’t allow yourself to get swayed by the negative press surrounding any of the boards … if you search long and hard enough you can find tales about any one of the choices we have – much of it is driven by social media and p!ss poor reporting by the media jumping on the bandwagon so some of it is inevitable. Laugh at it, accept it’s a consequence of the prevalence of social media and move on.
(3) I knew it! Just knew it! I should have put those students on Foundation/Higher (delete as appropriate!) I genuinely think that if you had made a different choice there would be a different group of students in your group for which you would be saying exactly the opposite of what you are saying right now. I have views about the higher v foundation tier and have blogged about how I think putting students on foundation is limiting their ambition. Hopefully our policy of using higher tier for the vast majority of our students this year is justified.
(4) Using Higher/Foundation is playing the “game” … no! I am paid to get the best progress out of my students. It is not a game. If getting the best grade for them is what I am meant to do, that is what I will do. The new progress measures will move the focus from a “pass” grade (or will they!?!) but for us it has always been about getting the best results for our students and so don’t see these new measurements as scary.
All that aside, I will not be saying the above next Summer when it is the first sitting of the new GCSE. There are so many decisions to make and a lot at stake if we get it wrong.
No doubt I’ll be back!
