Back in January I wrote (in this post-> here ) about how comparability across tiers was going to be ensured by the exam boards and Ofqual. I included some analysis about the percentage of marks available on the “crossover” topics for Edexcel, AQA and OCR; I also went off on a tangent about the why this is important to me and I committed to revisiting these percentages after the first live sitting … I have done just that! Read the previous post for yourself … I particularly like the wool references (it’s weird re-reading the shiz I write – I often wonder who this person is and then realise it’s me … I’ve come to the conclusion that a) I’m marmite and b) I must be a nightmare to live and work with!!
In that post I also included reference to how I needed to “get a life” – that hasn’t changed and isn’t likely to change any time soon – this week I will be posting the conclusions of my new analysis in 4 posts (I’ve looked at the Eduqas papers too this time) and I’m starting with Edexcel (Don’t be thinking its favoritism … it’s not … and the other boards won’t escape this either as I’ve already done the work and just need to write them up but we have a little thing happening tomorrow and I still have stuff to sort out). This “little thing” happens to be a bringing together of nearly 300 people at Alton Towers for what we are hoping is our first annual conference … when we started on this JustMaths journey 4 years ago who’d have thought that we, three full-time teachers could pull this off! It was always part of our ambition to bring teachers together and to share further afield. I’m not saying the last few years have been easy … there have been times when I wished that I could go back to being ignorant of all the changes and just bury my head in the sand but then it’s so rewarding when I know that what we do helps not only our own students but 1000’s of others too. SEE!! I’ve done it again … waffle and piffle!!
Anyway … let’s get back on track … Its probably timely to remind you that “at least 20%” on both tiers must be from common tasks that appear on both the higher and foundation tiers.
The initial analysis from Edexcel using the sample assessment materials, two sets of specimen papers and the October secure mocks showed: The lowest on any individual paper was 25% and the highest was 33.75%, with the biggest range across any set of 3 papers being 7.5% but the average across the 4 sets of papers was 30.00%.
In the first live sitting – I’ve shown the stats below – the lowest on any individual paper (out of 3 papers) was 25%, the highest was 33% and the mean average across all 3 papers was 29.17%. Additionally, once again, the order the questions appear on the foundation tiers is the same as the higher tier (which I like) and the last question on the foundation tier doesn’t appear on the higher tier – this is deliberate! Worth telling students not to assume that they can’t do all the later questions on the Foundation tier just because these are the ones that appear on the Higher tier too.
In this aspect, the Edexcel papers were similar to the materials we had from them to prepare students from and no surprises! I’m going to ask if we should expect a similar percentage of crossover marks in the sittings going forward … it would be good to know that we have this consistency (Graham if you’re reading this??)
I’ll be back with info about the other boards and once I’ve cycled through this analysis for each of them this week I’ll be writing about the other stuff I’ve done looking at the topics within each paper for each board too and have a lovely spreadsheet (below) full of data to share!! Apologies in advance for my drivel!
Have you a link to the spreadsheet Mel? Looks a very interesting read!
Thanks
Will do when I post next week.
Devastated that I couldn’t get a place to tomorrow’s conference.
Our booking was not placed properly so we’ve missed out.
Sorry we couldn’t help .. we’re full to the rafters
Mel – I know that I have said this before but I am really grateful to teachers like yourself who have taken the time out to share their knowledge and hard work. I know that I have learned a lot from you; along with Twitter, seriously the best CPD ever! I am also grateful that you explain some higher level maths in greater detail – gives topics another dimension to be looked at.
Always grateful!
This is going slightly off topic to your post but it is related to the Edexcel paper that has just been used. My focus this year was on the foundation as my class couldn’t access the higher papers. Upon seeing the paper I felt very disappointed/decieved that it felt more like the old spec papers. My impression was the foundation papers were suddenly easier more formulaic and predictable compared to all the practice papers. If this is true and remains to be true in the future then I wonder if the papers are going to be challenged. The AQA papers I have seen feel like the tougher standard and focus on problem solving I was expecting. Did Edexcel suddenly panic based on the mock results analysis? Perhaps this is all just in my head. I am looking forward to seeing how things progress and how results compare between the boards.
Thank you