Schools should refrain from dropping grade boundaries in new maths GCSE
According to the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, dropping the grade boundaries of the new maths GCSE will affect the perception of the subject.
As reported by Tes, Charlie Stripp, director of NCETM said that the new lower thresholds show more what pupils do not know rather than what they do.
Newly reformed GCSEs in maths and English were taken by pupils for the first time this summer, using a 9 to 1 grading scale instead of the previous A* to G.
In the new GCSE, Stripp stated that to achieve a grade four in the higher tier paper, pupils need to score around 20 per cent of total marks. Before this, pupils would need around 35 per cent.
Speaking at the Barbican’s Battle of Ideas event, Stripp said: “Succeeding in maths at GCSE level should be based on you achieving certain criteria that say that you know this much maths fluently. If you do that then you should get at least a level four.”
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