How grades will be awarded. The government and exam boards have got it wrong.

Our school has sent several reminders to parents about not getting in touch with staff to discuss the grades process/'argue their child's case' etc... It is quite clear that they are concerned lots of these kinds of messages might undermine with Ofqual the school's credibility when awarding grades. It's quite clear that kids at the top/bottom end of any grades calculated by schools will be subject to change when moderated by Ofqual also.

One of my DD's maths teacher started maternity leave at the end of Spring term - not quite sure what (if any) input she will be having into determining how DD might have progressed by the time she sat the exam.

I also feel for schools with loads of supply teachers over time whose children have not had a consistent figure who knows them and can vouch accurately for their achievement levels. And for those who have been home-schooled...

The person I'd send it to is being inundated by emails about another matter at the moment (by parents who clearly don't share my reluctance!) so I'll let that settle down before sending mine.

Piggywas I'm sure you're right that they're probably aware of it but on the off chance they're not, I'd rather make doubly sure. I'd kick myself if he got a lower mark in the subject where it's most needed due to a British fear of being a nuisance.

That's why Isa di to contact the SENCo but teachers should be aware of exam concessions.

The SPLD by itself wouldn't make teachers predict higher grades, unless concessions had been put in place.

I'd be inclined not to send that email. All the guff says to consider exam concessions , so they should.

Just my view.

I don't think it's 'that parent' ish to do so, I juts don't think it is a good idea. If you feel you need to, send it to the SENCo perhaps?

I imagine "that parent" would write something like "I know my little Johnnie has been disruptive and lazy for the last 5 years and that I've been abusive to you if you've tried to pull him up on it but he does deserve a 9 really so make sure you give him one"

Doesn't sound "that parent"ish to me either as a fellow GCSE parent

Thanks so much, it's good to know that in your view as a teacher it's a legitimate email to write. I've got the relevant bit from the ofqual guidelines so I'll hang it on that and make it as short and to the point as possible. And not send it until term has started.

PatienceVirtue in your shoes I would do it anyway, it may be a little annoying but definitely worth making sure every teacher had noticed the change to access arrangements.

@Rosieposy4 I so don't want to be that parent.

But (and I guess all of those parents have a but), ds got exam adjustments arranged after mocks, having never had them before. He's severely hyper mobile which means his hands get tired. He was to have extra rest breaks, not extra time. Realistically it was only going to help him in a couple of subjects - it was one subject teacher who suggested we get them as they felt the mock didn't reflect his ability - he wrote the right thing, but not enough of it and his handwriting deteriorated at the end.

As a teacher, would you really hate the parent (me) who writes to remind them to take these adjustments into consideration? Is there a way of reminding them without being incredibly annoying?

It's pretty obvious that the "in line with last year" part is so that schools don't give everyone 9s or A*s for everything.

Schools which achieve a higher percentage of 9/A grades than other schools are going to be able to get through a higher percentage of estimated 9/A grades than other schools, it's quite straightforward.

Only comparing it with the year before makes sense, as changes (such as a new, fantastic, head, or a new, appalling, teacher) take a couple of years to have an impact.

There are however always students, (and their parents, ohhh their parents!) who are convinced that although they got a 6 for GCSE they are definitely going to get an A* at A Level and I wouldn't want to be the teacher having to negotiate with them.

I wonder if they are aware that teachers have to rank students and to push a particular child's grade up you'd either have to leapfrog them over a more deserving student or inflate the whole cohort's grades (which would probably be adjusted down again by the exam board.) That's if I've understood correctly

I’ve had swathes of begging/pleading/ sob story emails from my students, only a couple from parents so far.

We have been clearly told not to contact the school or any teachers to ask for info.

I hear tell already today of students contacting teachers and telling them what grades they 'need'
I was wondering if anyone who was "that parent" right through school might suddenly change to sweet talking the teacher over email.

Cognitive bias comes into play, to a degree, when you have to rank the entire cohort as people are human.

Cologne, I’ve marked coursework for 25 years. At no point have l ever not given a mark because l don’t like a student.

In fact I’ve never disliked a student, even though they think we do. Nor have l had favourites.

I mark everyone fairly, and so do my colleagues.

I have tried to say that a few times rosie and wholeheartedly agree.

Plus, exam marking is wildly inaccurate. saying predictions are incorrect is making an assumption that exam marks are correct. The number of successful appeals does rather suggest otherwise!

UCAS predictions are always going to be way off though titchy
If i have a kid come to me in September who I reckon will get a B at the end of y13 ask me to put them down an A prediction because that is the course standard offer, then I will do that.
Why do I do this?
a) they may get the A anyway
b) it’s not my job to piss on their chips and demotivate them 9 months before their exams
And most importantly
c) they are offered AAA, get AAB and the uni takes them anyway ( we have seen this happen a lot, especially since we lost modular A levels but unis haven’t lowered their offers in many cases)
So my personal prediction would have a been a B, and that would be on their tracking data, but their UCAS prediction would be the aspirational A

Dd is the only student ever to have done a certain A level at her school. She got a Grade 9 in it at GCSE. The overall cohort fluctuates wildly and her school is so small it is exempt from reporting progress 8 figures. Most of the 6th form didn’t attend the school for GCSE.

So this will be interesting.

But cologne that's why HOD and Head of Centre have oversight and why it should be based on existing evidence and prior attainment. They are trying to make it as robust as possible. Of course there are issues : a bigger issue is inaccurate marking within schools being used as 'accurate data' but I can't see another way.

Perhaps you'd like to come up with a better system, OP.

What do you suggest?

Our big issue is that we've dramatically changed the way we do our tiers of entry this year. So we put 50% more of our students on foundation expecting they would do better.

We also took lots of our strong students off triple science and put them on double award. So they would see a grade increase.

That won't be reflected in this new methods. We flunked out last year. Put too many in to higher tier and hammered our results

I'm worried