Government U-turn - A-levels are now based just on teacher assessment

[SorrelBlackbeak]

www.bbc.co.uk/news

Just announced on the Beeb. All A levels and GCSEs based on teacher assessment.

That's totally unfair and not what I said. Wish I'd never bothered saying fee-paying - it's irrelevant really. I don't mean and didn't say that disadvantaged schools were more likely to be over-optimistic with CAGs - just that some schools (of any type) were. And this is not a hunch - Ofqual have already said that they had had some pretty surprisingly high sets of predictions. Probably the only way that a school being fee-paying is relevant is that parents might be particularly vocal if they feel the CAGs were too low.

Agree that CAG aren’t good for schools who were slightly more rigorous because they were wary of giving over inflated grades.
So now the teachers and universities will be the metaphorical ‘punching bags’ and Johnson and this lousy government will escape the wrath of parents.

Presumably though you can keep the highest grade so either the result you got last Thursday or the teacher assessment?

sashagabadon - CAGs were problematic for this though as some schools took these calculations really strictly and just didn't include the NEA and coursework into account, as they were incomplete and unmoderated work (as weren't due until after Easter.) So if you have a subject where NEA is 60% CAGs were already lower than they could well have been in the real thing. DD's CAGs, especially for one subject and partially for the other, were negative affected because of the non counted NEAs.
Her CAGs were lower than her predicted grades as a result, and then her results from Thursday has been downgraded again.

So yes, her new grades will go up a little - but still won't be a true reflection in 2 subjects (and one especially so) due to the way her CAGs were calculated by the school.

@OverTheRainbow88

Well I’d rather a few get higher grades than they deserve than those from schools such as mine which got ridiculously low grades because of where they live.

But then what happens to the soon to be year 13s when they come to apply for university themselves and find the entry requirements raised due to an increased demand for places? They're going to have to do the work and sit the exams, despite months out of school themselves, and yet still might be pushed out of university by this years cohort and their inflated grades.

aragog this may well now be the best outcome given the situation, you're right. I guess all I'm saying is that it's not the 'hats in the air, everything's fine' outcome that some people (not you) seem to think.

To be fair lots of large fee paying schools have also been affected, just not maybe so much at the lower end. But some of DD's friends from her old school - dd moved to state for sixth form - did have downgraded results from their CAGs just at the upper end of the A-E scale.

apricotblossom - I agree it is still not ideal, but it is better than it was before the U turn.

For this year's cohort - yes, probably. For last year's cohort, up against this year's leavers for jobs, or next year's cohort, potentially still up against them for university places - not so much. I just don't see any fair outcome from this situation, unfortunately.

Agree puppy. I have skin in that game as daughter is soon to be yr 13. If her uni offers are inflated due to this i will not be happy!.
Hopefully lifting lid on this years uni capacity will help to reduce this issue for next year

Apricot you are right it is a cluster fuck - an avoidable one if this govt did not sign off on a set of results that they knew were going to disadvantage less advantaged children. The implication that the teachers of those children over inflated their CAG grades any more than those in the private sector is wholly unfair and not demonstrated. I suggest that if your husband has proof that this has happened in a more disproportionate way at a particular school then he reports that instance. Although given he is not party to another schools student performance record I am at a loss as to how he knows.

And this is not a hunch - Ofqual have already said that they had had some pretty surprisingly high sets of predictions

Many reasons for that that are not due to teachers over inflating grades though.

1. This year we’re the first to sit the 9-1 GCSEs (which for many subjects, just had Year 12 material shoved into the GCSE syllabus) and so were better prepared.
2. A subject could have had a different teacher in the previous years
3. Students are not a one size fits all and a department could have been unlucky with previous years students’ personal issues that affect performance that the department did not have this year.
4. Fewer universities offered unconditional if firm offers this year due to a clampdown. So many schools suffered from students downing tools from this practice in the last few years.
5. Teachers getting in to their stride from the Linear A Level changes as they have had 3 years now to get a ‘fee’ for what the exam boards are looking for in the change in syllabi.
6. Schools would have had a few years to work on the Gove changes to the curriculum and therefore the students and teachers would have been better prepared.
7. Cohorts in state schools would have been larger in number than a lot of few paying schools (I appreciate not all, my DH too works in a few paying school) and therefore were unfairly hit by this arbitrary algorithm.

And so many more reasons...

Previously, GCSE and A level results tended to rise year on year due to a lot of these reasons. Let us not dismiss this year’s cohort’s potential to do the same.

Because teachers at different schools talk to each other. Because teachers who've worked in numerous schools have a pretty shrewd idea how other schools they've worked in are likely to have approached this. Because Ofqual have already said they've had sets of straight A CAGs submitted where this is frankly implausible. As I (and others) have already said, this is not a private vs state issue. I'm sure there are schools on both sides of that fence which have been 'optimistic' with their submissions.

Chloe it is funny how that potential was realised in the private sector (4.7% increase in A8 and A grades) and that is OK, but suddenly it isn't when it is applied to the whole cohort (0.3% for 6th form colleges). Especially as many independent schools opted to keep to the old style GCSE so wouldn't have benefited from the more rigorous 1-9 grade ones.

They do not have access to other students assessments as that would breech the Data Protection Act and GDPR legislation. He cannot have known without breaking the law. Talking to other teachers and interpreting their discussion is not the same as knowing.

Nope, you're right, it's not the same as knowing.

What a bloody mess!

So, come Thursday will the students receive two sets of results? One teacher assessment and one using the algorithm?

I'm assuming the GCSE students will only be getting their CAG result now, and will never know what their algorithm result would have been.

Who knows though, a lot can change in 72 hours .

Aragog

If the school didn't include NEA work then you should be complaining.

From AQA

"The centre assessment grade is the teacher's professional judgement of the most likely grade a student would have achieved if exams had gone ahead.
It should be based on a range of evidence including mock exams, non-exam assessment, homework assignments and any other record of student performance over the course of study."

NEA should have been included.

The pupils where I work will be gutted as the CAG grades are lower based on previous years. A boundary change means we have a different cohort - SLT worked hard to ensure we were at a similar level. The 14 grade 9s in my subject was moved down to 8 year 9s to reflect previous years.

Nightmare

Exactly, purplesky. I find it impossible to believe that all schools will have been this scrupulous, particularly given (admittedly anecdotal not scientifically proven) comments from other teachers that they're now jolly glad that their SLTs encouraged them to be generous with CAGs. Plus of course, if we're working on the basis that teachers know their pupils best, then in theory the small percentage of algorithm grades that were actually increased from CAGs should be marked back down. Of course they won't be, as that would be too hard on the individual students - but it's hard to argue logically that they shouldn't be.

FrippEnos

This is what we've been looking into, though DD wants to just forget about it all and move forward now she is happy with where she is going.

School were saying it is because it wasn't completed before lockdown - was due in after Easter - and one hadn't taken place at all (should have happened the week lockdown began). Her CAGs were her mock marks from what have seen so far - which were purely based on the paper she did in January of year 13. When mocks results were sent out in January it stated that it was the grade purely from the paper. So unless they believed she'd get no additional marks from her NEA - which is unlikely as in two subjects she was being assessed as being very high makes on her NEA - then they didn't include them.

We shall see. At the moment DD was to just leave it all regardless. I think she has gone beyond the upset and is coming out the other side now, so don't want to push it too hard right now, especially after the dreadful year we've experienced as a family as it is.

@apricotblossom

Nope, you're right, it's not the same as knowing.

Just as unescorted can't know for sure either - both of you are making your own suppositions for others to draw their own conclusions from.

However the facts from Scotland, where schools from more disadvantaged areas had estimated much higher grades over previous years compared to schools from other areas, seem fairly clear cut to me.

That said, obviously private schools benefited more from the algorithm, as far as A-Levels in England went, which obviously was not fair either.

I don't know what the answer is or how they could have done this fairly for everyone (as even exams have their biases) but it isn't wrong to say that there are losers now, after this u-turn, just as their were losers before it.

@Unescorted

Chloe it is funny how that potential was realised in the private sector (4.7% increase in A8 and A grades) and that is OK, but suddenly it isn't when it is applied to the whole cohort (0.3% for 6th form colleges). Especially as many independent schools opted to keep to the old style GCSE so wouldn't have benefited from the more rigorous 1-9 grade ones.

Yes, funny that, isn’t it?!

If we are going with anecdotal evidence from word of mouth, as some are on here, there was plenty of of independent schools who either did not have any in a subject downgraded (very small class size) with teachers expressing surprise at this as they were, in their words, ‘generous’ or another ex-colleague who said they had just one student downgraded from a few paying school but of course all this was acceptable just a few hours ago. I even had a friend who had no A Level students this year, yet they moan about teacher grade inflation being the sole reason (also from an independent school).
However, I wouldn’t take anecdotal evidence as gospel and no one should.

Aragog

As long as your DD is happy, that is the main thing.