You wouldn’t expect me to let this pass without comment would you? Oh yeah you probably haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.
On the 12th August Ofqual wrote to Pearson instructing them to adjust their grade boundaries on the 1MAO H paper this Summer. They were instructed to raise the boundary from 69 to 70. That’s comparable outcomes for you … it really is a zero sum game. I keep coming back to someone telling me how shocking it was that a student could get a C at GCSE with just 35% on the exams and thinking they really don’t understand that even if they all got over 80 or 90% and made super human progress between KS2 and KS4 we get our pass rates capped anyway nationally. Now I’m not saying I have the answers but I know there is much more focus on Maths and so much more collaboration and sharing of good practice out there that it cannot be not making a difference. Unfortunately we (and it’s my favourite phrase at the minute) are playing of a zero-sum game … where one school does well another will have suffered as a result and next year it will get worse because we are being given zero guidance about grade boundaries from anyone. Actually scrap that … I get the grade boundary thing what we need though is some guidance about where the “drop-off” point will be on the Higher tier … this Summer a student who got about 35/200 in April on an in class assessment went onto to get a really secure C … would I enter him on the Higher tier next Summer? Who knows? I once said that the same impact in terms of raising mathematical ability/attainment (whatever rollocks you want to call it!) could have been done by just changing a “good pass” to a B and saved us all this agro. I need to know what a student needs to get to not get a U on the Higher tier … turning it back on me and my professional judgement is just absolving responsibility back to us teachers on something we don’t know enough about (we have a plan on where we are pitching this cut-off and I promise I will share soon!)
Basically I am so angry that we are being given “jack-sh1t” guidance from anyone (and I know the reasons why – I get it! I really do!). The system sucks in terms of transparency about how boundaries are set … don’t be sending me links to videos and stuff, I’ve watched them – I am a simple girl and people tend to try baffle me with bullsh1t which is why I have just put freedom of information request into Ofqual for more information i.e. the raw data etc that justifies this decision. Not because I feel it could be challenged but because I genuinely want to understand the process.
I’m back!!!
Hi Mel
On another similar issue, do Ofqual do anything to ensure that a grade on IGCSE is the same as on GCSE?
I taught a couple of pupils this year who missed the G boundary on the edexcel exam. Having looked at the IGCSE papers afterwards, I’m convinced they would have achieved a much higher grade there.
I’m suspicious that an increase in the lowest pupils moving to IGCSE has caused the next lowest to take the hit on the regular GCSE, but I don’t have any concrete evidence on this. Any thoughts?
They “manage the standards” on all exams so yes and I think that could well have an impact. Thanks for that idea
We need a system like the driving test where you simply pass. Maths lessons after that would be to enable pupils to prepare for post 16 study which in my world would be compulsory and either A’level, core maths or some worthwhile form of functional maths.
GCSE is becoming a dark expensive game that schools, pupils and teachers are losing.
Please let us know how you get on.
I will do.
Hear hear. I have this year been writing assessments for our year tens not knowing where to set a pass mark on the 9-1 exams, with just some wooly guidance that roughly the same proportion of students will get a 4 as would get a C. So if the exam is much more rigourous, which the Pearson materials seem to show, how will they ensure this? By having a much lower grade boundary?
Last year our school , like many others entered 80% of our pupils on the last of this spec higher tier paper. I personally taught set 8, the lowest of our higher tier sets. I had four girls who all achieved high 60’s in terms of their raw score, which would have given them a pass in any other of the last six years but with the highest ever grade boundary did not. Now, you could say, the exam was easier so the grade boundary should be higher. However, nationally the pass percentage dropped from 66% to 64%. So for these four students, and many others across the country, Ofqual and essentially government interference has labelled these students and many others as failures. My girls all worked incredibly hard, one making progress from a predicted “G” only to fall foul of political jiggery pokery. I wasn’t aware of Ofqual writing to Pearson and asking for the bar to be raised.
Moving onto this year we have just looked at the newly released mock exams and are worried that we still have NO GUIDANCE AT ALL for how many marks a student will need to pass Maths, or the difference between a Grade 8/9 and the percentage as was required for an A*. This wouldn’t be such a big issue but with students having to resit, and now with so much emphasis on statistical comparisons, performance related pay and so on, it is a very uncertain environment in which we are operating this year