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

Ofqual have got it pretty right. They're using all available data on the students, and taking into account expected attainment based on the cohort as a whole and attainment of the school as a whole. It is as fair as it can be and ensures that schools can't 'game' the system in anyway.

given that a lot of exams are incorrectly graded anyway I suspect this is not going to be any less accurate than if exams went ahead

All I have learned from our Head of Dept, is that schools that have consistently over predicted for the last few years (A level) are very worried.

The OP's interpretation of the guidance is very misleading.

"To make sure that grades are as fair as possible across schools and colleges, exam boards will put all centre assessment grades through a process of standardisation using a model being developed with Ofqual.

We will consult on the principles of our model shortly, but we expect it will look at evidence such as the expected national outcomes for this year’s students, the prior attainment of students at each school and college (at cohort, not individual level), and the results of the school or college in recent years. It will not change the rank order of students within each centre; nor will it assume that the distribution of grades in each subject or centre should be the same. The process will also recognise the past performance of schools and colleges. However, if grading judgements in some schools and colleges appear to be more severe or generous than others, exam boards will adjust the grades of some or all of those students upwards or downwards accordingly."

www.gov.uk/government/news/how-gcses-as-a-levels-will-be-awarded-in-summer-2020

I disagree with the OP’s interpretation of the released guidance.
Don’t forget that in the guidance, the exam boards can use collated evidence such as mock exams and NEAs if they want to question a school/subject’s marks and this can be used to argue against past cohorts low grades (or high grades)

This is an inaccurate thread.

Jeanne there must be hard evidence for that?

That is not exactly what the guidance says.

I work in a small secondary school. We are in the situation where this year’s cohort is significantly stronger than last year. We are concerned that their grades may be affected detrimentally.

Witch No. That is in my view not what they are doing (though it seems to be what the OP thinks).

So the best performing students grade will be adjusted to match the best performance from last year and all other students will then fall in line behind, matching last years?

Have I got that right?

No, surely not, as they will be looking at cohort KS2 info too. So if this year's cohort is demonstrably better than last years then the grades can be demonstrably higher too.

What would be unfair would be to just take the school's word for the grades without any sense checking against school's previous results and cohort ability. Schools could just make it all up then.