The languages' community is gearing up for GCSE results day on Thursday 22nd August.
Thank you to David Blow, ALL Fellow, for sharing
this document entitled 'What to look out for in GCSE ML Grading on Thursday 22nd August 2024'. [Apologies that the formatting has not transferred well to Google docs. I will update tomorrow!]
I have pasted it into this blogpost. Throughout,
italics indicate content from sources quoted.Ofqual announcement in July
On 18th July 2024 (postponed because of the election), Ofqual
announced decisions arising from the completion of their work in 2019 to bring grading in GCSE French and German up to that of GCSE Spanish.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/grading-continues-as-normal-this-summer-in-england
GCSE French and German
Ofqual decided in 2019 to better align grading standards in GCSE French and German with Spanish (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/inter- subject-comparability-in-gcse-modern-foreign- languages), following the conclusion of an extensive programme of work considering inter-subject comparability. We required exam boards to award more generously at grades 9, 7 and 4 in GCSE French and German in summer 2023. We also set out our intention to review this to consider whether any further adjustments were needed.
Following these adjustments, there is greater alignment between GCSE French, German and Spanish than prior to the pandemic. We were always clear that any adjustment might be phased over more than one year, and we are therefore requiring exam boards to make a further positive adjustment this summer in GCSE German (grades 9, 7 and 4), and GCSE French (grades 7 and 4). We are not requiring exam boards to make a further adjustment at grade 9 in GCSE French, since the evidence suggests that there was broad alignment with Spanish in summer 2023. Making these small adjustments supports Ofqual’s role to secure qualification standards.
It is important to note that the 2019 review (and hence this final piece of work) was only regarding GCSE French, German and Spanish.
These moves were welcomed by organisations, although they made the point that there was still not comparability with the other EBacc subjects. [See
ALL press release 18th July 2024]
https://www.all-languages.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Press-Release-18-July-2024.pdf
What will 2024 ML grades be like when announced on Thursday?
FFT Datalab published an extremely helpful
blog on Monday.
Here at Datalab, we’ve
been banging on about the harsh grading of
modern foreign language GCSEs for years. So we were pleased to
hear that Ofqual plans to make some
adjustments to grading this year. But we were slightly less pleased
when we heard the details of the plan.
Essentially, the plan is to
award some grades in French and German more generously this year, to bring
grading in these subjects more closely in line with grading in Spanish. But we
would argue that grading in Spanish is also overly harsh, and that these adjustments may still not go far enough
Entries in ML
From FFT Datalab blog:
The proportion of pupils
entered for a language has fallen every year since 2019. [See picture 1]
 |
| Picture 1 |
And we are likely to see
another small fall this year. Provisional data on
entries suggests that, while entries to languages are likely to
have increased this year, they will have increased by less than the increase in
the overall population of 16 year olds. [See picture 2]
 |
| Picture 2 |
So, despite strong increases
in entries in Spanish and other modern languages, we can probably expect to see
the proportion of pupils entering languages overall fall again this year.
Picture
3 is taken from the provisional entries information and shows the
entries over time for French German and Spanish and the sum of all three as percentage of entries for Maths, as a proxy
for the total number of candidates taking exams
 |
| Picture 3 |
Cohort prior attainment profile in each subject
This information is only made public in October each year
when the DfE publishes the Subject Transition Matrices, so we can only go up to
2023. Ofqual and the exam boards do have
access to the 2024 prior attainment figures (i.e. KS2 in 2019) and use those as
part of the “comparable outcomes” process to ensure a reasonably consistent
year to year picture.
It
is misleading to look at raw % achieving grades in different GCSE subjects,
because the ability profile taking each subject will differ.
Although “comparable outcomes” is in place to ensure that in
general % getting each grade in each subject remain reasonably constant over
time, clearly, if fewer lower prior
attainment pupils take a subject, then the percentage of higher grades
should rise.
The Ofqual decision in 2019 was to bring grading in
GCSE French and German up to GCSE Spanish.
However, between 2019 and 2023 the profiles taking French, German and
Spanish changed, and we expect the change to be maintained if not furthered in
2024
Entries from 2019 to 2023:
- French: 109,139 to 110.101
- German: 37,292 to 29,523
- Spanish: 85250 to 104,718
There is a complication in comparison by prior attainment because the scale for KS2 prior attainment changed from sub-levels to scaled scores – roughly the KS2 Level 4b should align with scaled score of 100 whilst the top and bottom stay put.
We can see clearly in picture 4 the numbers of entries, where dotted lines represent 2019 and solid lines 2023, that the number of entries in Spanish from pupils of lower prior attainment have risen relatively.
 |
| Picture 4 |
The
clearest way is to compare within 2019 and within 2023 the relative proportion
for each prior attainment group doing French and German relative to Spanish,
which is shown in Picture 5.
 |
| Picture 5 |
You can see clearly that the proportion of most able
students in German relative to Spanish has risen noticeably (and in French),
and so the proportion of top grade in German should rise in order to maintain
“comparable outcomes”.
It
is also worth looking at the raw numbers in the DfE Transition Matrices
published in October. You can see in
Picture 6 that in 2023, there were over 10,000 students for Spanish entered
with scaled score below 100 (the “expected” score), and yet over 500 of them
gained a grade 8 or 9.
 |
| Picture 6 |
Whereas
in German, (Picture 7) only 2,000 students had KS2 below 100, and only 20 of
them gained a grade 8 or 9! |
| Picture 7 |
This information for 2024 will be published by the DfE in
October, but it is unlikely to change much from 2023. Below in picture 8 is the
subject Transition Matrix for French to explain what the figures mean.
 |
| Picture 8 |
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