VERY LONG! Key stages, GCSE, A level and Hogwarts Quals!

[Hollydaze]

No: HPFGUIDX 30122

> The first for years at secondary (high school) school is spent 
studying for
> "O" (ordinary) levels. They are now called GCSEs (general 
certificate of
> secondary education). 
<SNIP>
I'm not exaclty sure which bits of your explaination will fit with 
which bits of mine so I have snipped it for the benifit of people 
reading this.

One slight error in that bit though, GCSEs are not studied for four 
years they are studied for 2 and you only start them in year 10 (see 
below).

There is one slight mistake in here and to understand it you have to 
understand that there are 5 KEY STAGES or SATs (Standard assesment 
tests) to the English/Welsh and N Irish School sytems.

One thing you must keep in mind while reading this is that the levels 
go from 1 - 8 - read on and you will see what mean.

Key stage 1: are exams taken in English/Science and Maths when you 
are in year 2 (when you are 7 year old) adn there is one paper per 
subject. They are an assesment of how much you have learned between 
Reception (first year at school), through year 1 to the end of year 
2. To judge how well you are doing you are given a level in terms of 
a number, 1 is the lowest, 2 is the highest, you vary rarely get 
people who get 3s (4 upwards apply later). They are not very 
important and are not revised for, in fact by the time you get to 
your next year you have most likely forgotten them, I know that I 
can't remember them, I just remeber the teachers telling us we were 
going to have fun answering some questions. 

Key Stage 2: is the same sort of assesment but taken in Year 6, it is 
taken in the same subjects (English, Maths and Science). This time it 
is to see how much you have progressed between the beginning of Year 
3 up to the end of Year 6, another difference it that this time there 
are 2 papers in each subject. One for "normal students" and an 
extention paper which is offered to those thought to be "bright 
enough" to gain an extra level.  It is marked on the same level 
scheme as the key stage 1 papers. The Normal paper in this case 
though is range of level 3 to level 5, with the extention paper being 
a level six (if you pass it). 5 is the average achieved at this 
level, 5 above and 6 exceptional. To do teh extention paper you must 
still take teh "normal" paper, as you have to attain a level 5 before 
tehy will even look at your extention paper.

This is where there becomes a difference between what happens and 
explaination given by the person who said GCSEs are four year courses.

Key stage 3: is the next stage. These exams are taken in year 9 (the 
equivalent of Harry's 3rd year - they do not have anything similar at 
Hogwarts) again they are taken in the same subjects (English, Maths 
and Science. These asses how far you have come between year 7 (Hog 
1st year) and the end of year 9 (Hog 3rd year). They cover levels 
ranging from level 3 (the lowest) to level 8 (exceptional) however it 
gets little complicated here. The levels that can be achieved depend 
on certain things and what subject. To explain this you have to 
understand that by the time you are in year 9, you have probably been 
setted for most subjects. SO I will explain this a subject at a time,

English:
There are three papers in English, two "normal" papers a lower one 
(for children with a lower "normal" abilty) which goes from levels 3 
to 5, and an upper paper (for children with upper "normal" abilty) 
which goes from 5 to 7 with the two "normal" papers, you eitehr take 
one OR the other NOT both. Only people who take the higher graded one 
will be given the oppotunity to take the extention as again, you have 
to attain a level 7 before they will even look at your extention 
paper. The extention paper is level 8.

Maths and Science:
There are 3 papers in this one too, two "normal" papers a lower one 
(for children with a lower "normal" abilty) which goes from levels 3 
to 6, and an upper paper (for children with upper "normal" abilty) 
which goes from 5 to 7 with the two "normal" papers, you either take 
one OR the other NOT both. Only people who take the higher graded one 
will be given the oppotunity to take the extention as again, you have 
to attain a level 7 before they will even look at your extention 
paper. The extention paper is level 8.

Please notice that the levels on the respective Science/Maths papers 
are different to those you can achieve on the equivalent English 
paper (appart from the extention).

Another change between Key stage 2 and key stage 3 is that even 
though you don't take exams in the other subject you knwo study, your 
teachers asses you by your work and prgress and give you a Key stage 
level. So you not only get one in the three core subjects but in 
History, Geography, Technology (sp) Religous Studies etc

NOW ON TO GCSE and OWLs

GCSE is actually a 2 year course studied not from year 7 to year 10 
but in year 10 and year 11. This is where you will begin to 
understand why I have explained the Key stages, as the other name for 
GCSE is KEY STAGE 4, it is also why a level 8 in Key stage 3 = a B 
Pass, at GCSE.

Most people will take between 8 and 12 GCSEs depending on the school 
you go to and what levels you achieved at Key stage 3, for example if 
you achieved all 4s then you are unlikley to take 10. 9 is the number 
recomended by the Governement and ALL students HAVE to do Maths, 
boths types of English (Lit and Lang), Science adn a modern Forgeign 
Language. You also have to do RS although som schools get round this 
by doing a none GCSE subject called PSE (Personal and Social 
Education) which you do not take an exam in -my school does this for 
example so not eveyone takes RS.

Maths counts as 1 GCSE

English counts as 2 (one for English lit and one for English Lang)

Science can count as between 1 and 3 GCSEs:
You can do Single scince where you get 1 GCSE and only take one exam.
For example you would get a grade D, this is the one usually taken by 
people who did not do so well at Key Stage 3.
 
Double science where you get 2 GCSEs and take 1 exam in each of the 
three different types of science (Chemisty, Biology and Physics) 
The three exam papers are combined and then the mark is given adn 
that applies to BOTH grade so you would get for example A A or D D.
This is the one taken by most students. The advantage of this over 
the other two is that if you are weak in one part of science adn good 
at the other two then your good marks will drag up the bad one.

Teble science is the other option, where you take 2 exams papers in 
each seperate type of science and gain one GCSE per Science (3)
This means you get 3 INDEPENDANT grades, for exmapl:
Bio: A
Chem: D
Phy: B
(Treble science comes under one of the free choices, rather than 
something you are TOLD to do)

Tha bad thing about this is that your weakest area does not get 
dragged up by the other two.

This means that there are between 3 and 7 other subjects that you can 
choose for yourself - depding on how many GCSEs you take. What these 
subjects are greatly depends on your school  adn thigns such as what 
courses they teach, time tabling, how many languages you have a 
choice of taking etc.

For exmaple at our school if you did 10 GCSEs (like me)
You did the 5 preset ones (2 Englishs, Maths and Double Science) plus 
a Humanity (RS, History or Geography) a Modern Foreign Language, a 
technology (Textiles, Cooking, Resistant materials, Graphics os 
Electronics) plus two free choices (made from a list of options 
availible to you)

You study your X number of subjects for 2 years and at the end of 
those two years take exams (again certain papers for certain levels 
etc) you can achieve grades A* down to G, were G is a pass. U is 
ungraded and a fail, although what you can achieve in each paper 
depends on what your baird is and what their level restrictions are, 
for example one board may have an RS paper with goes the whole way 
from A* to U, while another might have two papers one that goes from 
A* - D (followed by U if you don't make the D pass grade) and then 
one that goes from D through E, F, and G down to U. Again the set you 
are in effects which level (if any) paper you take.

This is where you see some similarities to OWLs, they are taken in 
the same years, there is a maximum of 12 that you can take 
(presumabley the grades are similar going form an A* down to a fail)  
they are less important than teh next set of exams you take (A Levels 
or NEWTs accordingly) 

A LEVELS (Advanced Levels) 
This system has Changed since JK thought up NEWTs (it changed 2 years 
ago, I am only the second year to take AS levels and A2 levels) so 
rather than giving you the new system which does not relate in any 
way to NEWTs I am going to give you the old system that was around 
when JK first starting writing the books and was around up until the 
release of book 4.


A Levels have another name just like GCSEs, you guessed it.... KEY 
STAGE 5!!!!

With A levels you have almost completely free choice on what subjects 
to do, there are not any subjects that the Governament says that you 
MUST do although some schools do say that people have to do certain 
subjects (for example English) and again which subjects you can do 
will depend on your schools ability to timetable them for you. The 
amount of Subjects availible at A Level greatly increases form that 
availible at GCSE (for exmaple things like Photography and 
Pcyhcology -sp- are introduced) but again not all schools offer the 
same subjects. Most people take between 3 and 5, most people did 3.

A Levels are studied in years 12 and 13, otherwise known as the sixth 
form which is what they USED to be called. The school years system 
used to go from reception to year 6 (in Primary school) and then 
started again when you entered Senior/secondary school going from 
year 1 up to year 7 - notice the way that Hogwarts works is the same 
as the old school years!! Years 6 and 7 (secondary) were more 
commonly known as the upper sixthform (year 7) and lower sixthform 
(year 6) hence when the years changed  to the current year 7 up to 
13, they kept the name "sixthform" as a kind of nick name. Sorry 
thought that might help peolple to understand why the years at 
Hogwarts are different to "normal" years.

Anayway, A levels were studied over 2 years and again at the the end 
of the 2 years (the end of year 13) you took an exam in the subject 
you were studying, normally about 2 or 3 exams in each subject and 
then you got a grade between A (NOT A* - they don't exist at A 
level)  and G and the U as fail (again U means Ungraded). This 
however has also changed as F used to be fail so this may apply at 
Hogwarts with OWLs and NEWTS.

The similarities between A Levels and NEWTs are as far as we can see, 
basically the same as those between GCSE and OWLs. They take about 
the same number and at the same time, they are both two year courses.

I am very sorry that that took so long but I am hoping that you know 
all understand better the british system of eductaion. As I said A 
levels recently changed but JK would not have known about this when 
she first began writing the books, also the School system year wise 
has changed and that was only just before I went to Senior school and 
the old system (going years 1 to 6 and then repeating) could well 
have still been in operation when JK started writing the books (I am 
pretty certain it was) which would explain ehr use of years 1 to 7 
instead of years 7 to 13.

HOLLYDAZE!!!
(Who is the proud owner of 10 GCSEs, including 3 A*s and 3 As and 
knows a really annoying person who got 6 A*s, 3 As and 1 B!!)