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Original poster

Are this year's GCSE and A level grades going to be fair?

40 replies

dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 19:41

This year's grades will be determined NOT by teachers, but by a big-machine-in-the-sky - a process called "statistical standardisation". This could disadvantage bright kids in otherwise dull schools. See, for example, this article in The Guardian on Saturday 20 June - the headline is "Against natural justice - father to sue exams regulator over A level grades system": www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/20/against-natural-justice-father-to-sue-exams-regulator-over-a-level-grades-system

An enterprising 18-year-old has also set up a petition, www.change.org/p/ofqual-review-the-standardisation-of-grades-in-summer-2020?fbclid=IwAR2toogfGtYUtSawgMBhqyQNYf_sQ8MrWEtvVKo9Gy_myolfQLE-lFEbVsc

and there is a new facebook group too

www.facebook.com/groups/272512373867127/

And if you're a teacher, you might like to look at www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/06/18/have-teachers-been-set-up-to-fail/

OP posts:
Original poster
dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 22:34

Thank you once again. How do you know that it's OK to submit any number between 6 and 8? Where does it explicitly state this? In your example, the average is 7. Suppose the school submits 8. Suppose further that a large number of school do that, submitting 1 more than the average, with the remainder submitting 7, and just a few 6. As I said, I don't even have O level maths, so maybe I'm wrong in guessing that the result would be to blow grade inflation sky high. Just as the FFT report shows might actually have happened. So please prove me wrong - or perhaps give me a worked example. Grade inflation might not matter, and Ofqual might be OK with all those overbid grades. Do we know? But given that 'no grade inflation' was a policy introduced when Michael Gove was Minister of Education, with Dominic Cummings as his special adviser, what do you think the current policy might be? To stop grade inflation, the boards will have to intervene, and maybe that 8 is pushed down to a 7. As I said in my last post, the boards already know that. So why ask the schools?

OP posts:
titchy · 21/06/2020 22:18

I can see where you're coming from, but initial expectations will be at National cohort level. These are based on SATS and previous cohort data. If the entire cohort is graded as expected then the majority of centres grades will stand as long as they're within an expected statistical deviation. So a centre could award 6 grade 8s or 8 grade 8s for History. As long as that's within expected for that centre neither will be queried.

Original poster
dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 21:55

Yes, thank you again. As you have described it, the standardisation will over-rule a submission that is 'optimistic'. The standardisation process can only do that if it already knows what a 'non-optimistic' submission looks like. So it must know the 'answer' before the submission is made.

I'm confused. The school need only submit the rank order for this process to work. So why were schools asked to submit centre assessment grades - especially in the light of the recent FFT report that suggests many of them - perhaps millions - will be ignored? ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2020/06/gcse-results-2020-a-look-at-the-grades-proposed-by-schools/ and inews.co.uk/news/education/gcse-a-level-exams-2020-millions-proposed-grades-cut-generous-predictions-england-450236

OP posts:
Ellmau · 21/06/2020 21:46

Teachers were asked to give grades for their students, and rank students within each grade in order, because they were familiar with said students and their work.

The standardisation is there to adjust for optimistic/generous over prediction, based on schools' previous performance, and the specific cohort's previous performance. Or under prediction of course, but that seems less probable.

titchy · 21/06/2020 21:46

What do you mean? The centre is the school. Teachers know their students - who else should submit grades? Confused

Ellmau · 21/06/2020 21:43

You can't, unless you have access to all the data from all the schools who have candidates.

Original poster
dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 21:42

Thank you. And another question if I may: why were teachers asked to submit centre assessment grades? Especially since, as you have so clearly stated, they can't be validated before submission.

OP posts:
titchy · 21/06/2020 21:40

What do you mean by replicate the process before grades were predicted? That document tells what the process is.

titchy · 21/06/2020 21:39

You'd need the know the results of the centre for the last three years, the profile of teacher predictions, teacher predictions nationally, the results nationally for the last three years and the key stage 2 results for this cohort.

Which you won't be able to obtain. Nevertheless it doesn't mean the process won't be robust.

Original poster
dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 21:33

I did say 'exactly'. If I had wanted to replicate the process before the grades were submitted, to check for compliance, how could I have done that?

OP posts:
Original poster
dennishsherwood · 21/06/2020 21:23

Ah! Sorry I'm behind the curve... and I must confess I don't even have O level maths (I'm that old...). Do you happen to know how statistical standardisation will work,, exactly? I've been trying to find out...

OP posts:
titchy · 21/06/2020 20:47

Bit late to the party OP! This topic has debated, discussed, petitioned to within an inch of its life weeks and weeks ago.

Teacher assessment plus standardisation (really - machine in the sky - clearly you didn't do much Maths Hmm) means I suspect that grades overall will probably be much fairer than if they'd been taken as exams where any number of things can and do go wrong on the day(s).

7ofNine · 21/06/2020 20:46

I think they'll be unfair on everyone not in these cohorts that had to revise and sit exams the usual way.

Ellmau · 21/06/2020 20:43

I think they're as fair as they can be in the circumstances. Obviously some will lose out.