Yr11/13 parents take a look at the sneakiness

[lifecouldbeadream]

The Consultation on how the GCSE and A level grades for this cohort has been released....... very quietly.

Consultation ends 29/04.

You can see the proposal here...... and it appears it includes SATs grades...... yes really......

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/exceptional-arrangements-for-exam-grading-and-assessment-in-2020

Mummy If you read the thread you’ll see that it’s not done on an individual level. It really won’t matter what one child got in their SATs.

I have DC in Years 11 and 13.

They didn't do SATS. One did the school's own entrance exams, plus CE. The other went straight from the Junior Dept to the Senior Dept without any exams at all.

We have had comprehensive information about the grade calculation process from one of my DC's schools (the other is less forthcoming), and there's certainly no mention of SATS there.

PPs have said that it’ll just be an adjustment to the statistical standardisation, but given the examples that they’ve given for the biases they might need to take account of....... I just feel worried. I’d like to think that it’s nothing to be concerned about...... but given the current chaos of PPE issues ( and yes NHS here......). I am concerned at how reasonable it’ll look in the end, especially as no appeals essentially, will we just end up with a whole cohort sitting exams in the autumn through their ‘choice’.......

SATs would have always been indirectly involved in the process, as it’s SATs scores that determine target grades (as distinct from predicted grades - for GCSE target grades are determined from historical data about how someone with a certain score in their SATs went on to perform on their GCSEs whereas predicted grades will involve teacher-led assessment). This is the basis for Progress 8 as a school’s performance indicator.

Not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s just how it is. For the PP who mentioned prep schools - yes, I teach in a state school but when we have pupils who come from prep schools or abroad and haven’t sat SATs we are missing the data. So, we will make up a target grade in around Year 9 but that isn’t official and so those students would be missing from our performance indicators.

Target grades aren’t going to be the be all or end all in the process - in some cases they might be meaningless. But it is yet another piece of data to be considered with everything else in this teacher-led approach.

Prior attainment at GCSE can include SATs. At A Level it will include GCSE performance. It is entirely sensible to include this data as prior attainment is a huge indicator of future attainment...unsurprisingly, but as has been said, it is looked at on wider basis.

School prior attainment is also vital for what has to be a statistical exercise in allocating grades. Schools which historically get high grades would get high grades if exams are sat this summer and will be awarded this year by the methods chosen.

So these grades can't just be awarded by schools suggesting the likely grade if exams had been sat in May. Some would be excessively generous and many would be rather too generous - of course there is an incentive to want to help the students and make the school look good. Therefore, some 'moderating' is needed. It's just the same when exams are sat - grade boundaries are set after the exam and based on perceived difficulty of paper and subject and to maintain similar %s of different grades over time. All of this has to happen this year too.

Taking an exam cannot be replicated when no exam is sat. It cannot be identical, but the methods used allow grades to be issued which are based on sensible techniques and will deliver very similar results to an exam system, which in itself is fraught with difficulties.

Everyone worries their child will be disadvantaged or cheated out of grades they could have achieved, given a sudden last push in revision. When teachers suggest grades and overall grades are awarded, they will be based on waht students would have achieved if they had sat those exams in May and done the revision. Everyone knows that many students make big progress in the last weeks - and that will be factored in. However, it should also be remembered that every year when students take exams, many are disappointed. At A Level, well over 75% of UCAS predictions are too generous and students achieve less well. That will be the case again this year and won't mean they have all been cheated of the grades they would have got in the exam. It happens every year and most who planned for uni go - many take students with grades below their offer and clearing always gets many others to places they are happy with. It will be the same this year too.

Every year, the awarding of grades is a statistical exercise as well as being based on exam performance. It has to be a statistical exercise this year too and looking at student and school prior attainment is very important for standardising, as is the fact schools have to put students in rank order.

All the way through secondary school teachers are beaten with the Sats results as to measure whether they are on target with their GCSE grades. So if this is true it would kind of make sense 🤷🏻‍♀️

My son has been up private schol do fegjnitrly no SATS. He goes to a school famous for having no tests at all prior to GCSEs so not every school can googol this criteria. The last SAT he did was when he was 8 or 10 ish. Now doing Alevels

In suspect very few will sit exams in the autumn. At A Level, most students who want to go to uni will get to uni. Every year most students perform below their UCAS predictions, but don't choose to re-sit, but find a good way forward with what they have. Those who do sit will mostly find their grades don't change - again, the majority of UCAS predictions are above what students actually achieve. However it is important that the option to sit an exam is there.

Really there could be no other way to challenge the grades issued.

Choosing to revise now for possibly more than 20 weeks isn't very appealing or sensible, so most will really prefer to avoid sitting the late exams and A Level ones might be too late for uni or or at least mean a late start which won't appeal to many. Perhaps there will be some who take a year out and sit the late exam or wait until the following summer. Perhaps at GCSE there will be reasonable numbers sitting the Autumn exam in Maths and English to get the magic L4/5 - but probably again, most won't see an improvement if they are borderline,me specially after weeks with no school.

SATS will be used where they exist....and not where they don't. It is just one measure amongst many and I think the whole point is that LOTS of things can feed into the overall grade issued. It has to be a flexible system because not everyone has SATs or not all schools sit Mocks in the same way etc etc, so schools have to make a holistic decision based on what they have and then the Boards will start from that point but feed in lots of other information which will adjust grades issued to different schools and the students within them to create a very similar pattern of results to previous years.

It's a very detailed very thorough and crucially very FAIR process. SATS data is NOT going to be used at individual level, only centre cohort level, and, as happens every year, entire cohort level.

It stops centres (schools) gaming the system, they acknowledge that some centre have greater proportion of disadvantaged students for whom predicted grades are likely to be lower than they'd otherwise obtain and will adjust the model at centre level to counter balance this. Remember predicted grades can be moderated up as well as down.

What's the alternative OP?

Timing-wise it's fairly normal. They'll need a couple of weeks to read the responses and incorporate them if they deem them reasonable. That takes us to mid-May. That leaves less than 3 months to get the entire dataset, upload it, apply statistical modelling left right and centre, test it thoroughly, test it again, then release the results. Do not underestimate the size of the task. To be done largely by people remote working.

How are they going to assess private school kids who don't sit SAT's then?

My dd was home educated and didn't do SATS, she then went to a specialist school and didn't sit any exams.
I don't see the problem, tbh.
They will be given a mark if they don't like it they can sit the exam, having had 6 months longer to prepare.

A lot of uni's have just given unconditional offers and said if the students need extra help, they will give it.

Initially they had said that students could appeal. A day or two ago they changed that and said if students are not satisfied with their results they can resit them.
My son's school have said they will be sending a detailed explanation of this article out to all parents soon so we are sitting for it to see what we might do

How are they going to assess private school kids who don't sit SAT's then?

APOLOGIES FOR SHOUTING BUT SATS RESULTS ARE NOT GOING TO BE USED IN TEACHER ASSESSMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS!!!!!

They are merely used at centre cohort (if available) and national cohort level. The same as they are every year when GCSE grade boundaries are set.

And the two colleges that he's interviewed at have given him conditional offers based on the discussions they had at the interview

What does PPE have to do with grades? Not seeing the correlation. It's a crap situation and there will be some unhappy with whatever is decided, just as exams themselves are unfair and don't demonstrate someone's actual ability; let's not covet them as a flawless system. Everyone across the country will be in the same boat, and the document is online.

Not quiet or sneaky at all. Every school data manager group I am part of has been discussing this ad-nauseum, as we all try hard to work out how this can be implemented sensibly and fairly for all students. I shall be in almost isolation trying to do this for my school.

OP, you sound like you expected a personal email from the DfE asking for your opinion! Schools, who are the stakeholders here, will have expected this document and as some pps on here have pointed out, their child's school have already sent them details of the proposal.

I just think that the way they initially sold it, doesn’t quite match up with the reality as it stands. I appreciate that no grade will make up for the actual assessment, but for students who are given grades which disappoint them, it won’t be their sole responsibility for their result- but the sum of a process which includes some questionable ideas in my view, and teacher assessments- how will any of the students do better than their teachers predicted, which I am certain students do each year. There will certainly be students who don’t see eye to eye with particular teachers and you can’t tell me that won’t affect their judgement. Not because I’m viewing teachers as unprofessional in that regard, but human nature.

I completely appreciate that some students are disappointed each year, my issue is that I’m not sure it’ll be the right students who will be disappointed this time around.

No, I didn’t expect a personal email. And my view of my child’s school in this regard is not particularly rosy at the moment.

A previous poster mentioned a daily email, my point was simply that I don’t get a personal email, and there has certainly been little in the way of publicising this to parents and students.

The reference to PPE was the overall assertion that there is enough PPE being very definitely not the experience on the ground. My confidence in the general processes is therefore erroded.

Perhaps I am being unreasonable.

They could always do it like "Battle Royale" to sort out who gets what.

This isn’t sneaky, it was always known that SATs results would be used to assess the cohort ability level relative to previous years. If you’ve missed that previously, you’ve not been paying attention.

It’s how they set the grade boundaries for GCSEs. And they’ve always had centres where they’ve checked the grades awarded by grade boundaries against grades they expected that centre to get to check the boundaries are reasonable.

Now Mockers......

I think there’d be a number of 15 year olds who’d see the appeal in that

how will any of the students do better than their teachers predicted

They can sit an exam and then take the best result out of the teacher prediction and exam result.