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The new 9-1 System. what a load of rubbish

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um wow I had no idea there is no coursework now. I was in hospital and ill during the entire exam period in year 11 and did not take any of my final exams but I was awarded my grades based on my coursework, if the exam was worth 50% or less of the final grade (i.e., if I'd done most of the work for the grade) then I got the grade. I got all A*s, As and Bs. I could not imagine what would have happened without the course work I'd done over the two years I would have had NO GCSES. I'm seriously so shocked right now, if it hadn't been for that coursework I would have had to take all my exams again and bear in mind the illness is long term and I was basically unable to do anything from 2013 to 2015. wow. this is terrible I hope they have put something in place to help people who might miss their final exam due to extenuating circumstances, maybe mock exams can be used in their place? woah. this is such a bad system, like I thought it was just the letters changed to arbitrary numbers I had no idea they did all this. what a mess !

Reply 61

Hali7

Original post by Tsr163

What are your guys opinions?? I've just done my Gcses but I'm feeling sorry for all those facing the brunt of it this year 😑😑😮

Lol tbh they are harder but we will still get the same grades than if we did it two years ago because grade boundaries will go lower so ha. Suck your mum

Reply 62

Notnek

Original post by cranesinthesky

For students who have completed at least 25% of the course exams, if their special consideration application is successful, the student will receive an enhanced grade (based on their mark from the exam(s) they did) .

Cases like yours (less than 25% completed) are extremely rare but there is special consideration for these cases, which is done on a case by case basis. I don't think these rare cases should be a reason to not have linear exams.

Reply 63

Retrodiction

Original post by emmac0

I'm in year 11 now and the amount of content in each subject is unreal. The new geography courses has content from the courses my teacher did at UNI

This really doesn't tell you anything. It's like saying that a GCSE English Literature curriculum that includes Shakespeare has content from an undergraduate Shakespeare module.

My GCSE English teacher used to give us the same schtick just to make us take our studying a bit more seriously. When I was doing my GCSEs there was a section in the English Lit exam that required a comparison of 4 poems and she told us "I didn't have to do anything like this until I began my degree!" Obviously deceptive, but it did the job and kicked us into gear somewhat.

Reply 64

Retrodiction

Original post by hannah00

true ! its also creates too much emphasis on the final exam, so if you have 1 bad day ,your screwed.

I have friends who go to ivy league colleges in america, and their final exam only counts for like 30%. The rest is weekly assessments, mid term tests and courseworks.
So if its good enough for the top universities in the world, why is it not good enough for michael gove and the tory party

I went through undergrad at a UK university, where final exams are worth anywhere from 75-100%, and postgrad in the US. You might think that the US system is preferable, but in reality it's a grinding slog of pointless busywork that never allows you to connect different parts of the course. Midterm exams assess everything learned before the mid-point of the semester, and final exams typically (not always, but usually) assess everything covered after the mid-term. There's no real opportunity to understand the links between the content taught in the two halves of the course like there is in the UK system, which ensures that there was at least one point in time when you knew everything and understood how it all cohered.

Reply 65

hannah00

Original post by Retrodiction

sure thats one viewpoint, but I think your discounting the benefits of not putting all the emphasis on one day and these universities produce incredibly successful graduates and have a reputation for excellence because of their system of learning.

one point in time where you know everything and then 1 month later you forget it all isnt any better imo

Reply 66

winterscoming

Original post by hannah00

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think that's a problem with the exam system - it seems to me a problem with the way subjects are taught by spreading subjects out too thinly.

Learning is something which requires repetition in order to really sink in to your long-term memory. It's a failure in the structure of the course if teachers are only covering the material once and then never revisiting it until the final exam revision sessions - by which point it's too late to really learn things properly.

When learning something new, the ideal is to start out with the goal of familiarising yourself - not worrying whether or not you'll be able to do it in an exam. Our brains need time to adapt to new ideas and concepts - the first time learning something new is always the hardest; the brain is like any other muscle, and takes time to adjust - it's never an easy thing to do.

One month later, you need to repeat everything again. Most people will struggle to remember anything more than the basic concepts, but being at least familiar with the subject means the real learning process can start. Being familiar with the content should make the repetition much easier; concepts which might have been difficult first time around should feel a bit more accessible, and you'll be a lot more productive at picking up more of the detail.

Lastly, anywhere up to a year later, you should repeat the same exercise a third time. After a year you'll have begun to un-learn and forget a lot of the detail, so you need to go through the process one last time. Your long-term memory will likely contain some information, so it'll be much faster than the previous repeat, but you'll be focused on all of the question-marks and blanks which you'd long forgotten and hadn't truly grasped before.

By this point, you've trained your brain to be able to understand and recall the subject, so picking up new ideas and letting them stick should feel more achievable without the kind of difficulties you'd had before. After you've repeated something 3 times like this, you're far more likely to be able to recall the information under exam pressure.

I know this type of learning happens in some subjects (A-level maths for example seems to do this well - or at least they did in my college), but it certainly doesn't seem to happen with all of them - I remember GCSEs being really bad for endlessly hopping to new ideas all the time and never repeating the earlier stuff.

I suspect the reason that this doesn't happen much at GCSE is that the curriculum is just too focused on trying to cover too many things in too little detail, rather than focused on real learning by picking fewer topics to study in greater depth. The irony is that the whole education system seems to have been designed by people who don't understand what it's like to learn something new for the first time. Of course, the new grading system does nothing to help (it probably doesn't hurt that much either, but it's like they're solving completely the wrong problem).

Reply 67

RickHendricks

Original post by willsss

I think it is ridiculous. They shouldn't have altered the curriculum and system to such an extent. The concept of a 9 is ridiculous because very able students are going to think less of themselves because they didn't get an impossible grade. If anything, it puts more pressure on people and lowers self confidence.
However, since they did change the system so drastically, I think the new grading system is rather useful. Imagine if they had changed the curriculum and left the grades as A*-U. Then an A in 2018 would look worse than a A* in 2016, even though it is much higher.

you're forgetting how the grades boundaires are worked out. the exam boards don't just randomly. put some mark down and say its a 9. they take all the marks in and pick a top certain percentage to represernt grade. hence if you're work was a grade 9 standard then you should fall into the percentage.

Reply 68

sadforsadboys

Bumping a thread, but from a Year 11 student in Northern Ireland's POV, I can't grasp the new GCSE system. I'm fortunate and am the last year doing the old CCEA GCSE courses for all of my exams, but I feel sorry for my friends across the sea. The new numbered system makes me uncomfortable, and CCEA's new C* grade for Year 10s is really odd. I think the new system needed more time to be phased in as many have complained that it's too sudden.

Reply 69

Laura/

I don't disagree with the changes in grading as it is important that universities and employers are able to identify the most academic students. However, the changes were phased in far too quickly without allowing for adequate preparation time for resources to be produced, practice papers created and approximate grade boundaries made clear. The grade boundaries thing is particularly important as most sixth forms around me select on the basis of gcse predictions, but as no one knows what percentage will be needed for which grade, the predictions are wildly inaccurate.

Also, personally, I find closed book English literature exams immensely frustrating as how well you can memorise quotes is no indication of how capable you are of producing solid analysis.

Reply 70

Anniex02

The content for triple science is so much harder now, half of its been pulled from a level so not many of the teachers know what they're actually teaching. And to get a good grade you need at least half the marks from content you haven't even been taught.

Reply 71

CountBrandenburg

Original post by Anniex02

I wonder if that’s more of a teaching problem tbh. If teachers don’t know how to teach a level content... they really shouldn’t be teaching.
Besides I’d say the physics spec from what I’ve observed isn’t too bad though ( the content from a level previously was laughable) I can’t say the same bio and chem but eh

Reply 72

Anniex02

Original post by CountBrandenburg

Yeah 100% agree because the teachers at my school are shocking haha

Reply 73

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Original post by CountBrandenburg

Original post by Anniex02

Yeah 100% agree because the teachers at my school are shocking haha

The issue with the sciences in particular it's that "science teachers" are mostly biology teachers. Chemistry teachers are a more rare species and many parts of the country are in desperate need of physics teachers. If you're teaching sciences at KS4 (GSCE) you didn't used to need knowledge of A Level physics or Chemistry, that's the difference.

Reply 74

The RAR

The whole point of this system really is to make GCSEs harder, apparently the government thought that too many people were getting As and A*s and I am like **** off, thank god I have done my GCSEs and won't have to sit these horrendous exams