Predicted grades lower than mock results?

Okie dokie then I guess you need to chase up with school and ask them to amend his PGs to his latest results. Or you could flag it to the college in his application that his latest mocks show higher grades than his PGs. The website says "show evidence of" possible grades.

@clary you are misunderstanding the issue. The ranking for the oversubscription criteria is done by predicted grades, not actual grades. One of our local grammar schools does the same and every year they are oversubscribed in the most popular subject combos by applicants who are predicted straight 9's. They don't have to actually get their predicted grades. Once they have an offer, they just have to meet minimum grade criteria, which are lower.

At least one other school sixth form (Twyford) has been pulled up by the schools adjudicator for doing this, because the subjectivity of using predicted grades is a breach of the admissions code. But stand-alone sixth forms don't have to comply with the code.

OK well I would still be impressed if on an annual basis they could find 240 16yos from a local enough area to get there who got all 8s and 9s at GCSE. Seriously. In DS2's year of 200+ at his leafy comp only a handful of students did that.

The website says you need eight GCSEs at 7 or over so I think you are worrying unneccesarily tbh. If 7 is his lowest PG then that sounds great to me.

But this is why using "predicted" grades for oversubscription criteria is a problem. Many more students will be predicted straight 9's than will actually get them.

OP, do the criteria say that applicants will be re-ranked based on actual grades in August, or not? If they are, then its fine, but if not then its an issue. (There is a whole thread about another school that does the latter).

Yes I understand they are competitive, but fewer than 1000 students gained all 9s in 2019 (the last non covid year, arguably). I can’t imagine the numbers gaining all 8s and 9s (hard to google sadly) would be multiple thousands. Presumably a sixth form college has an intake of several hundred, from the local area. That’s all I meant.

It's not a grammar school. It's a standalone selective sixth form academy (so it doesn't need to follow the national admissions code).

My understanding is that grammar schools are allowed to have very high entry grades for sixth form entry because they are academically selective throughout the school.

I’m surprised if a sixth form destination requires PGs of all 8 and 9 to offer a place tbh. They’d struggle for students surely? Only a very small % of 16yos get those grades. I wouldn’t worry, unless of course they have told you that they do?

Are these teacher predicted grades or the once calculated from their end of primary SATs/ KS3 achievements? I'd check that first and then talk to the teachers if it is going to effect his applications to 6th form - they might have to put the data predictions rather than their personal predictions if that makes sense.

I would email each of the 3 teachers to say (politely) that the predicted grade is X which is lower than the mock grade y and ask if this is a mistake. This happened to my child re one subject and the teacher confirmed it was a mistake and corrected the predicted grade. My child did get the higher grade in the actual GCSE so the amended prediction was correct. I only bothered to query it because, as in your case, it did possibly matter what the predicted grades were as my child was applying elsewhere.

Exactly. That was my underlying point. It sounds like that school was providing target grades and (presumably) calling them predictions.

Target grades are different from what's the forecast/prediction. One is the aim and the other is the likely outcome.

Those shouldn't be called 'predicted' grades. They are minimum target grades, i.e. the grades she needs to get for the school to be able to show the DfE it is doing a satisfactory job. A good school will give raise a child's internal target grades above the minimum targets if they consistently achieve or beat them.

@JusteanBiscuits in your position I would tell the sixth form that your school doesn't provide formal grade predictions, only minimum targets, and send them the mock grades instead. Schools aren't obliged to provide predictions or references for sixth form applications to other institutions.

DD's predicted grades were generated in Y7 based on data from primary (in lieu of SATs). Some teachers update them occasionally, others don't. So she has for example a predicted 7 in one subject where she consistently gets 9s, including in her mocks. I haven't challenged it as it doesn't really matter - local sixth forms aren't selective beyond meeting minimum grade requirements. In your situation though I'd raise it with school.

I teach a subject that has a coursework element as well as exam so a student in my subject might get a 7 for example, in their mock but if their coursework was currently lower than a 7 standard I might give them a predicted grade that is lower. I tend to speak to students where that is the case though so they understand because it does look strange.
At my school we give students 'college grades' for their sixth form applications that are 'what they'll get if everything goes brilliantly'.
Also agree with other suggestions that mock exams are sometimes easier because they only cover certain topics/aren't all papers/students have been guided to revise particular topics etc.

@JusteanBiscuits is this a school sixth form that you're applying to, or a stand-alone sixth form? If the former, then the admissions policy is illegal because predicted grades are subjective (meaning you'd have a strong appeal case if your child's actual grades were higher and you could demonstrate you missed out on a place unfairly). But if the latter, then unfortunately they don't have to conform to the admissions code.

It's almost definitely that the mock tested certain areas only and there is more to do for real. An equivalent 'grade" isn't really the same as doing it all in one go.

We sometimes set only section a or b of one paper (when there are two). This means 3/4 of the qualification are still uncertain. But if I know a child can do well on one skill, and less well in another, I'm not going to forecast that they'll come out overall as if their strongest area is representative across the whole course.

Even if a child is roughly evenly matched, it's still harder to turn over and carry on for as long again without a break than it is to just sit what's set for mocks.

Ah @DrFosterWentToGloucester23 you more or less agree with me.

I was coming from an MFL perspective (which is why I wondered what subjects), where we perhaps would not have covered all topics by now so it might not be a full paper; or yes, I have tailored the translation (hard element) to be on a topic we covered recently.

Op I think the suggestion to include recent mock grade in your sixth form app is a good one.

Also, clarify whether predicted grades are teacher predicted or ‘computer algorithm’ predicted. The first is a professional opinion based on a variety of factors and the second is immovable (based on prior attainment). It’s what schools get assessed against and beyond their control.