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

Malvina - what daily government email? I’ve not heard of this

Sorry but there is not good correlation between SATs and all GCSE subjects. There is an excellent piece on it. For example, it’s crap for languages, sciences etc as these are not taught with any degree of specialist input in state primaries. Would have been hopping mad if my kid had had SATs included last years.

Best predictor of GSCE scores is unsurprisingly, performance in KS3 - so Y7,8,9

Sorry- not that SATS use is sneaky..... that the consultation not more widely publicised.... after all there is a daily briefing, anyone would think they don’t want parents to have an opinion.

DD's school don't do SATs ..

And how on earth are they going to deal with home educated children?

Noble the consultation suggests that there would then need to be 2 certificates, one with teacher predicted and would also then show all the grades for the autumn, so I think that’s going to be a difficult position for the students. I’d like to think they might re-think that one.....

Obviously they couldn't use SATS on an individual level as a significant minority of kids never took them for whatever reason (weren't in the UK, home educated, illness, private school) but they can compare the current cohort to previous years to see if we'd expect them to do better or worse on average.

Now the H/E Children is a whole other problem.

I’m assuming they would need to sit in the autumn as unlikely to have a close enough relationship with a centre, though it does mention private candidates might be able to submit data for evaluation for a centre to make a determination.

And how on earth are they going to deal with home educated children?

They’re screwed regarding teacher assessment unless there’s a private centre with enough evidence on them to predict them a grade. They can sit the exam I guess.

Unfortunately there is only so much that can be done.

DS didn’t do SATS. He did CATs I think.

Not sneaky. I'm ok with it all. Ds1 is awaiting GCSE results.

I think that’s going to be a difficult position for the students.

Why? If they pass maths, they pass maths. Best mark stands.

If they did use SATs from primary my kid would be screwed. His whole cohort had their results annulled. We only got arithmetic and SPaG. I've had to fight the school to get his targets increased from a 2!

The fact is there will always be exceptions, but in my experience cold, hard data - such as SATs data to generate GCSE target grades and GCSE results to generate A Level target grades is far more reliable than teacher-led predicted grades. I remember an inset day a few years ago where, as a school, our A Level predictions were SHOCKING - something like an 11% level of accuracy.

Obviously some teachers/departments will be better at predictions than others. Some subjects easier to predict too. But my experience was at an otherwise good school, with more experienced colleagues than average, and solid heads of department - yet we still totally missed the mark with predictions.

And, yes, the tendency is to overpredict - whether that is a misguided attempt to fit with Uni requirements or just being ambitious for our pupils. So my view is the more cold data required in the process that teachers need to follow, the better.

@Italianmeringuebuttercream Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the school cannot, in any official way, change target grades. Sure; they can put a different grade on the internal system; on reports; to compare against mock exams etc. But the “official” target grade will always be a 2, so if your son ends up with all 9s then that just means the school will have a huge boost to their performance indicators and will look like they did an incredible job teaching him!

My dd didn't do SATS and she was predicted lower grades for GCSEs because of it. It bugs me and I don't know why as she got all 8 and 9s and in her first year at A levels has already got two AS levels at grade A.

I'm hoping this isn't bad news for anyone and selfishly, not for DD. She's had enough shit.

I was interested that the accompanying literature review had one study that said private schools are more likely to underestimate A Level grades. Every private school prediction I have known (albeit only about 20 including me) has always over estimated. However they underestimated Dds grades at state school. I would have thought there is the most horrendous pressure on private school teachers at the moment, especially at A Level. Smaller class sizes so closer to families and more variation between cohorts, having to rank students, less standardised testing (sats), knowing that some of their families sacrifice a lot to pay for education...
I am glad the decision is ‘standardised’ by external ‘forces’ in a way as there will obviously be some very unhappy parents.

Tbh OP it's not just you they don't want an opinion from. The release wasn't widely publicised to teachers either.

Givenchy was that A Level predictions for UCAS? Because we all know they aren't the same thing as actual predicted grades just before the exams are sat, which are usually pretty accurate.

@GivenchyDahhling

That's daft - statistically SATS results are correlated to GCSE results but are still very poor predictors. It would be madness to simply extrapolate and would quite rightly cause outrage because it would ignore all the subsequent hard work or lack of hard work which has been done.

Of course they wouldn't simply use GCSEs to give A-level results and SATs for GCSE that would be completely ridiculous. That's not what's happening at all.

Most schools use SATs to determine a pupils flight path. All target and expected grades are based on previous data. So, if previous pupils with the same standardised score as your child in the sats go on to achieve grade 6's at GCSE, that then becomes your child's expected flight path. The school will base their 'expected progress' on these grades. Teachers will be told that the minimum that pupil ought to achieve is a 6, because previously, pupils with the same intelligence level as your child achieved 6s. Effort and attitude are not taken into account at all. If the pupil does not achieve a 6, that counts against the teacher and impacts negatively on their performance related pay. If the pupil gets a 7, then it impacts positively on their performance related pay.
The projected flight path will now be taken into account when figuring out your childs grade. It is unlikely a pupil with a flight path of a 6 will achieve 9's in every subject. If the school put grades 9s in for a pupil on this flight path, it would open them up to further scrutiny. If the school has evidence to prove that pupil has performed exceptionally well, it will help to justify the grade. However, the school's previous performance will also be taken in to account.
If the school has had a positive progress 8 score in previous years, then these grades are more likely to be upheld, depending on how positive the progress 8 score was. For example, my schools previous progress 8 score was 0.69 two years ago and 0.79 last year - this puts us 'well above' average in terms of pupil progress. Therefore it wouldn't be beyond expectation to believe that pupils in our school would out perform their expected progress. However, in a school who has a negative progress 8, it would be highly unlikely a pupil would achieve 3 grades above expected, because it doesnt usually happen in that establishment.
Schools are still getting their heads around this. Once we do, we are going to do everything in our power to ensure pupils get the grades they deserve. Most SLT will be responding to this consultation. It will probably change again.

It did also say private school on the whole were more accurate though zanda iirc.

@ZandathePanda

But clearly they're going to use a study not a random person's anecdotal experience. My experience is the opposite to yours private tend to under estimate and state over estimate - but my experience is as useless as you - it's very easy to look up data for this and this is what they'll hopefully do.

Consultations never are widely publicised, this one isn’t unusual for that.

And tbh, from the few I’ve filled out over the years, they’re not particularly paid attention to either.

These things are true (although the reform to A levels and GCSEs was very publicised... and then ignored)

@Piggywaspushed No, they were the “final” predictions as we don’t have a majority cohort go on to university. It’s embarrassingly poor; I know.

Well, yes that is poor...