GCSE results 2014 Southwark & Lewisham

[BB100]

There seems very little in it this year; perhaps because BTech qualifications no longer count towards 5 GCSES's incl. maths & English.??? Who knows!

Harris Crystal Palace 77%

Charter 77%

Kingsdale 76%

Sydenham Girls 71%

Harris Boys East Dulwich 70%

Prendergast Hilly Fields 70%

Deptford Green 70%

Aske's New Cross (Haberdasher) 70%

Bonus Pastor 67%

[LondonMix]

Have Forest Hill boys results not come out yet and Harris East Dulwich Girls?

[Miacis]

Hi. Interesting and thanks for posting. Some schools don't seem to have published theirs yet on their website eg Habs Hatcham

[bornagain]

I think Habs Hatcham is Aske's New Cross. Any news on Harris Girl's?

ETA Just been on Harris Girl's site and it has news on individual success but not on the overall percentage which suggests that perhaps it wasn't that impressive?

[newboots]

That is a really impressive-looking set of results!

[newboots]

Actually, I've been back and looked at last year's results and there are some big variations.

[Renata Hamvas]

I think ED Girls was 67% (I'm not 100% sure though!)

Thomas the Apostle Boys 73%

Well done to all the local 16 year olds on their achievements, particularly as these are the first batch of pupils taking the new tougher no resit and mainly terminal exam format of GCSE.

Renata

[Carbonara]

Well done all students!

Is the list above 5 A*-C or 5A8-C incl maths and English?

[Renata Hamvas]

Hi Carbonara, it's including English and Maths.

Renata

[James Barber]

The official stats are released in January once remarking etc has been undertaken. But isn't it good that the Southwark Junior School improvements are bearing such fruit. In 2003 when current GCSE pupils were starting in year 1 Southwark education was still being managed by contractors before we ensure Southwark Council education dept was credible again (it had failed two Ofsted inspections).

The biggest issue I used to hear from secondary school heads was the lack of progress their new pupils had made at junior school. Without this problem we're seeing great results.

These results will continue to improve until all our Southwark children have spent all their educational experiences in great Southwark Schools. So by my reckoning we should see another 3-4 years of GCSE improvements before things settle down.

[ClaireClaire]

Hello,

I was wondering if someone could help me interpret the GCSE results for Charter.

I haven't found the full subject list of the 2014 results for Charter, so I am only looking at 2013 and 2012, as listed here:

http://www.londonschooling.com/?page_id=1081

I'm struggling to understand why the Maths scores seem so low? Perhaps I have the wrong data, but this is what I am looking at (from the website link above)

2013

A* - 0

A - 3.6%

B - 20.5%

C - 41.1%

D - 34.8%

2012

A* - 0.9%

A - 0

B - 2.6%

C - 58.8%

D - 37.7%

If this is accurate, it seems to indicate that most people achieve Cs or Ds...??

However, I notice that there are two other maths-related papers ("Methods in Maths" and "Appl. Maths") where the scores are better.

Similarly, the "English Lang & Lit" figures are pretty abysmal, however there are also entries on the table for "English Literature" and "English Language" separately which have a more reasonable grade distribution.

I'm probably missing some rather important part of the picture - would any kind person be able to help me make sense of this?

Many thanks,

Claire

[uncleglen]

This explains the Methods in maths and Applied maths linked GCSEs.

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/mathematics/gcse/methods-in-mathematics-9365

Usually weaker students are entered for easier papers which you could find out if this is the case by googling the English lang/Lit gcse as a single paper. The standard English GCSEs are separate Language and Literature. The distribution of single subject science grades is impressive.

[ClaireClaire]

Thanks very much uncleglen

I suspected it was something along those lines... so is it the case that students will EITHER take "Mathematics" OR the two linked exams of "Methods in Maths" + "Applications of Maths"?

Is it not the case that the basic Maths paper is obligatory?

I'm still a bit unclear, because it looks like, in 2013:

the number of students sitting "Mathematics" was 112

the number sitting "Methods in Mathematics" was 137

and the number sitting "App. Mathematics" was only 53.

I notice that Alleyn's and Dulwich College for example both seem to have the straightforward "Mathematics" listed in their results tables. Is there a hierarchy of difficulty in the different options for Mathematics GCSEs?

Apologies if these all seem like stupid questions... I appreciate that there are different exam boards (Excel and AQA etc) and that there might be Foundation or Higher papers available. if anyone has any further insight to help me figure out Charter's results I would be grateful.

Many thanks

[LondonMix]

They aren't stupid questions. The presentation and discrepancy in results is confusing and an explanation from someone in the know or from the school would be great.

[ed_pete]

ClaireClaire - having had two children go through GCSE's at the Charter I can agree that it's confusing. In the past children have been streamed into three pathways - let's call them high, medium, and low. Children in high and medium pathways take Methods and Applications separately, as you have discovered, which counts as a double GCSE for the pupil. The lower group take a single maths paper. The foundation paper allow the maximum of a C grade whereas with the higher the maximum is A*.

If you want any further information I'd encourage you to contact Mr Williams who is head of KS4 at the Charter and/or Dr Todd who is the Curriculum Leader for Maths.

swilliams@charter.southwark.sch.uk

etodd@charter.southwark.sch.uk

[LondonMix]

ClaireClaire, when you get an answer it would be great if you could share it with the forum.

[ClaireClaire]

Hello,

thanks for the responses on this.

Just want to feed back here to say that I have contacted the school directly as ed_pete suggested, and am reassured.

In previous years (e.g. 2012 and 2013) it appears that they have offered the Methods + Applications papers as an alternative to the "Mathematics" paper, as the previous posters have said. The reason for the figures not adding up to a clear either/or pathway is that some pupils might have performed poorly on Methods/Applications and then taken the "Mathematics" paper as well.

The results in 2014 as far as I understand are based solely on the EdExcel "Mathematics" exam, which is offered either as the easier "Foundation" level, or the harder "Higher" level. As someone else has noted, the highest grade possible for the Foundation paper is a C, whereas the Higher paper allows grades up to A*.

I did get an indication of what the 2014 maths scores are, but I won't post them here as they are still subject to remarking and therefore unconfirmed. But I was reassured by the preliminary figures as they seem in line with the GCSE results for other subjects.

Thanks again to those who posted, and also just to add that I was impressed with how quickly the school responded to my question.

Finally just to say that I was advised to refer to the DfE website for school performance info:

http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=136298&superview=sec&qtype=LA

Claire