Sabeen, who’s still 8, got the A*!!! That puts her in the top 6% of UK 16 year olds for maths.
She is probably the youngest girl in the history of the GCSE to get an A*. There have been two of boys that have done it when they were 7. And there could be a couple of kids that haven’t publicised their results.
And very honestly, it really wasn’t very hard work.
Anyway, a great result, and we’re all overjoyed!
So Maryam, 11, got A*s in Maths, Biology and French, and Danyal, 9 got an A* in Maths.
We’re obviously really pleased!
We don’t know the grade boundaries but going on the average of past papers, all 4 A*s were comfortable – around 7-10% above the minimum required.
It’s interesting that most UK school children will study biology for around 9 years (in the early years as part of science) before they take a Biology GCSE – and Maryam took 1/6 of that. In my estimation around 30% of kids doing what we’re doing could too, with another 50% taking less than 30 months to get an A*. The remainder 20% probably wouldn’t be bright enough to get an A*, but I think most of them would end up getting A’s. Just my guess – I don’t have any stats to prove it.
Anyway, glad to get this hurdle out of the way…
Constantly measuring progress and having clearly defined targets are crucial for high achievement. I use it extensively in many aspects of my life, including business, my weight, running, etc…
In iGCSE maths (Edexcel board) the % boundary varies from paper to paper but it’s ball park 60% for an A and 80% for an A*.
In April the kids were averaging around 75%, so a high A. In the next 12 weeks I made them do one past paper a day, nothing else. You’ll note that in the graph it doesn’t show a past paper every day – during those days the kids did a paper they had already done – and the marks were not included. You can see that the lowest mark in the 8 papers in June was 91%. Let’s hope they didn’t mess up the actual exams!
So if anyone out there wants to improve their maths grades, the lesson is clear – do past papers! Both my kids went from around 75% to 95% in just 12 weeks.
BTW both kids were highly motivated throughout. They wanted to outdo each other – but they were also interested in seeing all the stats I’d give them – the graph above, last 5 exams average, etc… and if they hit their targets they didn’t have to do a paper the next day. They also loved the fact that they were doing the exams 5 and 7 years early – gives a great feel good factor. And finally they knew that if they didn’t get an A* they’d be resitting it in 6 months…
The Wonder Years 