Local schools getting easier GCSE exams / inflated grades

TheLeftHand not disagreeing with you - I went to private and public and have taught in private but mainly state. My Dds are at a big comp - the provision is very good but there have been problems with a class size and disruption this year. I know the nearest private in the same year has seen more problems with drugs and perfectionism-related stress, because a know a teacher and pupil there too. Lots of different scenarios. But universities do understand this state v private and contextualised offers are the result. And also the statistics I mentioned bear this out on average.

No axe to grind - if I had genuinely thought it was worth it, I would have overlooked ideological principles and would have sent Dds to private. Like my parents did with me. I am also ‘pushy’ in that when one of my Dds humanities A Level examination grades was suspiciously low a few years ago, her teachers told me to get it remarked - I paid for it to be remarked and it had been marked incorrectly. She jumped up nearly 2 grade boundaries (got the money back from the exam board) so we had the ready money we could afford to lose to correct a mistake. Money buys things. Dd didn’t even ‘need’ it as she was in to her university with A* in the others but I wanted to right a wrong.

However, this year and last will be interesting to study in terms of private v state. We have both said there are parents who buy into the independent sector paying for grades and it will/may be found to be true in a few cases with statistical analysis. Also in some of the more competitive academies. But with the independent sector you have got the fact you are marketing a business, hoping parents will buy-in committing to spending huge amounts of money forgoing holidays etc. Which turns up the pressure to get the ‘best’ grades for future marketing and present ‘customers’. Of course the schools need evidence which is why the OP said they are piling the assessments on. But it will look dodgy statistically against historical data.

I am grateful I am not a teacher in any sector this year. And my Dds are not in Year 11 or 13. As someone else summarised: it’s a sh*tshow.

I don't think you've seen the actual guidance, Mooncup. You think that because what your school is doing is reasonable, that what other schools are doing is unreasonable.

But it is the guidance that is unreasonable. What the schools are doing is totally within the guidance.

Who wants to find out afterwards that there's an allegation that the assessments were handed out to kids in advance

But that's what the exam boards were told to do by Ofqual! How can you complain to the school that assessments were handed out in advance when that has been not only green-lit, but aided by the exam regulators?

"honest school"

It's nothing to do with that. The papers are online!

[quote HercwasanEnemyofEducation]@NeverDropYourMoonCup
I think noble is disagreeing with you that JCQ guidance says the assessments have to be treated with the same security as normal exams, they don't.[/quote]
Who wants to find out afterwards that there's an allegation that the assessments were handed out to kids in advance and the results mean absolutely nothing, though?

It's not as if the kids were in school for long enough to all be assessed fairly this academic year, what with self isolation, bubbles bursting, inequality of access to online learning despite buying them all laptops if they didn't have one, etc.

Maybe it's a downside of being at an honest school.

Mega cross posts there!

@NeverDropYourMoonCup
I think noble is disagreeing with you that JCQ guidance says the assessments have to be treated with the same security as normal exams, they don't.

No, I don't work with you, but don't assume that all schools are following the same process as you and that if they aren't, they aren't following JCQ guidance.

Suggesting that not doing so would be malpractice is pretty misleading.

There's a slight issue with giving students grades for "work they are doing now". If that grade is above their TAG, you're wide open to appeals. We're saying nothing about grades. SLT will be having a 1:1 with every student to give them a "your grades are in the range 3-4 for most subjects" to manage expectations. We are aware they've had no grade information since mid November due to lockdown.

The whole thing is a mess. And it isn't a private versus state thing at all. Of my friends from teacher training and previous schools, it sounds like some state schools are being absurdly lax and some independents really strict, and vice versa. The guidance is ever-changing and vague so it's an impossible situation for schools. Thanks a lot Gavin Williamson...

@Zandathepanda having taught in both state and independent, there are pushy parents everywhere. In my experience, the parents who buy into the independent sector thinking they are ‘paying for grades’ tend to be disappointed! I had the same misconceptions before I started in the independent sector. Actually, we get students for a really complex mix of reasons. Some love the extra sport, outdoor activities, drama, music etc. Others want the routine and safety of a long school day so they can sort childcare issues. Many students come because they have had a poor experience elsewhere and need extra pastoral or mental health support, or have educational needs that haven’t been able to be addressed elsewhere due to funding cuts. It’s not right that this type of education is only available to those who can pay, but please don’t suggest that our students’ grades are somehow worth less than those from state schools. Especially as for many universities, contextual data is used to give them higher offers than those from state schools.

The papers are being treated with the same level of security precautions as normal ones from Edexcel/AQA

This isn't true in the slightest, and the guidance doesn't suggest that they should be. The guidance says that a range of evidence can be taken into account including work done at home. If that doesn't suggest lack of security and rigour, then I don't know what does.

This is ultimately the reason why, when universities take state school pupils and private school pupils entering on the same grade, statistically on average state school pupils do better. This year will be the same on steroids.

The pressure on private school teachers and pupils will be intense as they want ‘value for money’. But ultimately it leads to the grades having no value.

Also it’s going to be fun in the long term on the school’s record as, however they spin it, it’s going to look like their record years did better at home on a computer than being taught at their actual school. That’s going to attract the types of parents that are nightmares for teachers.

@TheLeftHandOfDarkness I’m sure it’s not a state vs independent school issue. I bet there are rigorous and unscrupulous schools of all types.

However I also think that even if we all followed the guidelines to the letter it would still result in unfair outcomes and experiences for kids as one person’s estimation of what a fair and rigorous assessment will be vastly different to the next person’s.

Totally agree with you that this is a farce of the government’s making. They messed up last year and know that results day this year will bring similar controversy (what’s the bet we’ll have record numbers of top grades this year again) and they’ll rest easy in the knowledge they can blame the teachers.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup totally agree. I was just replying to the original message. Rumours and stories abound, and the grass is always greener at the other school! It’s a horrible situation for the students.

We aren't blind marking, nor can we treat the papers the same as normal years because they are on the internet. Not in their whole form, but all the questions on the papers are out there and available.

Everything we are doing is within JCQ guidance. Sadly the guidance is lacking in clarity and the words 'should, may and could' are doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Which is why all the anecdotal evidence needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. At the end of the day it is what it is. Schools have all set their methods now abs they’re supposed to sticking to the guidance. My DCs school is being incredibly strict and they’re sitting a full set of GCSEs. Crammed into three and a half weeks though so they literally have 6-8 papers a week. Way harder than the normal gcse timetable

I agree it is possible to move up grades, but many students last year did go up several grades very unrealistically. There was a problem with the algorithm and foundation students. Although in theory it isn’t possible to get higher than a 5 on a foundation paper, the algorithm ‘stretched’ the cohort across all grades, leaving students predicted at the top of foundation with a chance of getting 7/8/9. Whilst thus seemed like a bonus for them at the time, some are now really struggling at A level, and it doesn’t seem fair on the higher tier students.

State schools are absolutely following the JCQ guidance, as the last thing they want is somebody alleging malpractice and potentially fucking over an entire cohort. The papers are being treated with the same level of security precautions as normal ones from Edexcel/AQA, the marking is blind and, to be honest, to even think that the Exams Administrators and SLT responsible would do anything different when there is so much at stake is daft.

I teach at an independent school. We are being incredibly rigorous and having two full A level and GCSE style assessments under exam conditions. I’m getting the opposite story from my students. They claim that local state schools are only doing short topic-based tests where they are being told questions in advance. If schools are following JCQ guidance, students should not know what grades they are achieving at all at the moment. If grades are being shared with students, this could be considered malpractice. The whole situation this year is a farce, with the government and exam boards washing their hands of the process (yet still charging fees for exams). The guidance is vague and open to interpretation; all I can do with my students is be as fair and rigorous and unbiased as I can, so they get grades that fairly represent their ability. Plus supporting their mental health throughout the process. I can’t influence what other schools do. However, don’t assume independent schools will hand out top grades like sweeties!

[quote AmazingGrapes]@Pastanred I agree - it’s a total cock up of a situation and is fair on no one. We sat a number of kids for foundation last year and a few of them that were predicted 5s (the max grade on a foundation paper for those that don’t know) were bumped up to a 6 by the algorithm.

We also had some kids who were all set to get 1s bumped up to a grade 3. In other schools with historically worse grades than ours pupils were marked down and cheated out of higher grades that they deserved.

This year no matter how your local school is assessing there will be untold levels of unfairness. This is because how can you use one set of grades but thousands of different assessment criteria/protocols and expect fair outcomes?

I and many teachers see no reason why exams couldn’t have gone ahead. We’re all back in school and even if there had been an outbreak around this time they could easily have socially distanced y11 and 13 in exam conditions whilst other year groups stayed at home. What we’re seeing is the work of a government who is terrified by the enormity of last years fuck up, and has come up with an ingenious way of avoiding a second public fuck up this year - passing the buck to schools.

It’s unfair to kids and teachers. Teachers are marking thousands of papers that exam boards usually PAY people to mark and TRAIN them to mark. We’re just expected to do it in our free time around our ordinary teaching load.

When schools are this stretched and guidance is so thin on the ground, unfairness will abound. I wish the population at large could see the chaos that exists in schools right now - but I fear the government will get away with this one too.[/quote]
This too from a teachers point of view. Absolutely right.
All the government cares about is that the buck for this year's shambles (and it will be a shambles) gets passed to someone else apart from the DfE.

I'm just going to give a standing ovation to @AmazingGrapes because that's the whole situation. My students should have had the chance to sit exams. They are being assessed to within an inch of their lives currently.