JUST BECAUSE THIS MADE ME CHUCKLE .. Mel x

EDIT: I’ve had a response … I have added it to the bottom of this post. Very detailed and allays lots of fears! OMG … did I just say that??

Myself and Seager have met so many people on our travels over the last couple of months and it is evident that there are still so many of you losing sleep about grade boundaries and tiers of entry. Well don’t! We are all in the same boat.

To those of you that are now sat there saying: “well, stop teaching them to the test” I would respond: “We don’t and you’re doing an injustice to many amazing teachers by suggesting they do BUT we don’t operate in silos and can’t ignore the systemic things like having to report grades or students wanting to know what their predicted grade is because their college application requires it” To be honest, I’m now not ‘sweating it’ and just focussing on what we can influence and hoping the rest will take care of itself. As my mam would say: “what will be, will be!”. That is not to say, I am giving up being sceptical/cynical which is the reason for this post: I have written a letter (it’s like deja-vu!) to Ofqual asking some questions:

QUESTION 1: Given that awarding will be done on a comparable outcomes basis can you confirm that any prior-year attainment statistics (for the key grade boundaries) that are used in the process will be based on the “aged 16” ONLY results from these previous years?

To illustrate this, I have shown below the provisional percentage figures for Summer 2016 Maths GCSE results and you will clearly see that there is a massive difference between “all students” and “aged 16” students at the C (the new 4) grade boundary and in fact, also at the other key boundaries being used for awarding the new number grades. As this is the first year of the new GCSE and almost all students over the age of 16 will be sitting the legacy GCSE (and not this new 9-1 GCSE) I feel using a figure closer to the “aged 16” group is a key requirement in order to ensure that current year 11 students are not disadvantaged by these changes. Let’s be honest, the difference between whether the percentage of “4’s” is 61% or 70.5% is MASSIVE and in my opinion, we should be fighting Ofqual for the latter! (I can feel another flipping petition if we don’t get this or a valid reason why not!). Actually wherever the percentage falls as long as the process is transparent!

QUESTION 2: Can you also confirm how the results from Key Stage 2 for this particular cohort will be taken into consideration? I am aware that the 2012 Key Stage 2 headline measure showed that Mathematics was up 4 percentage points (to 84% of students achieving the expected level 4 or above) compared to the previous year. In effect, this should mean a slight uplift on the grade C/4 percentages, again, to ensure that students are not disadvantaged.

The fact that the new Mathematics GCSE has retained tiering and there being so much uncertainty about the tiers of entry and exam board to choose (these are the decisions on the minds of many maths teachers at the moment!) gives rise to my final questions:

QUESTION 3: How will you will be awarding the grades that can be achieved on both tiers to ensure that a student who achieves say, a grade 4 on the foundation tier has achieved the same level of standard as a student who achieves a grade 4 on the higher tier and vice versa?

QUESTION 4: How is the awarding of grades across exam boards being scrutinised and quality assured to ensure that students awarded the same grade but with different examination bodies have achieved the same level of standard?

I genuinely believe that it is imperative that confidence is quickly instilled in students and teachers that students, if prepared adequately for Summer 2017, are not disadvantaged (or advantaged, I should add) by being entered for a specific tier or entry with a specific exam board. Should this not be quickly established all of the changes and upheaval since the changes were announced several years ago will have been for nothing.

The biggest concern I have at the minute is that I genuinely believe (but have an open(ish!) mind) that should Ofqual not align somehow, the new grade 4 with the “aged 16” only statistics from previous years it will make a mockery of their intention to ensure that “students will not lose out as a result of these changes”. Bigger than all these questions though, in my mind is the importance of transparency of the whole process … watch this space for a response!

So I’ve had a response and yes I will be taking them up on their offer of a visit to Ofqual: