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

Exactly Piggy! I would love to do away with UCAS predictions completely and instead apply with actual grades awarded, like many many other countries already do.

Thanks @ChloeDecker - interesting.

The thing that worries me the most is that the it has been interpreted that school grades are unlikely to be the ones awarded. I can see my dd sitting some exams if she doesn’t get the grade she deserves. Also the no right of individual appeal.

Well this is interesting. Someone on twitter did a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient between his ranked mock results last year and his ranked actual A-level results and got a 0.89 correlation (very strong).

Might be worth heads of departments doing this to see how reliable their mock results are as a predictor of outcome ranking. twitter.com/adam_smithmaths/status/1251936902976098310?s=21

Statistical standardisation is a huge problem at my school. We are a small school (abroad, if relevant, but the same sort of approach will apply to IGCSE as is outlined in this thread).

Our Y11 grades last year were APPALLING. The year before not great. This year, we happen to have a MUCH stronger cohort and we had new leadership 18 months ago who introduced a raft of academic changes that have benefited current Y11. But now their grades will effectively be pushed into line with the last few years'.

To put this into context -

We have averaged 1 A in English each year over the past three years. There are 2 students this year who should WALK an A and about 5 others who I would have comfortably predicted an A*.

Last year, almost the entire cohort failed to achieve a 4 in Maths. This year we had expected almost all students to achieve at least a 4.

The pattern continues across most subjects. We are looking into how we can express this clearly to the exam board, using mock exam data (v unreliable) and standardised testing e.g. Yellis scores. We don't have SATS.

Understandably the exam boards want to avoid grade inflation so if they are to allow us to push our grades up, they will need to push those of another school down. No school is going to admit that this year's cohort is significantly weaker than their norm!

Apologies if mixed grading causes confusion... We do some subjects using old grading system and some using new. It annoys us too!!

To be fair, I know that my cohort this year is weaker and will award accordingly. Ironically, I do have more potential 9s and they worry me (they should be happy with an 8, mind , but kids...) but I will otherwise be awarding much lower grades than last year. I am optimistic that my school won't view this as a decline in standards (because essentially they are telling me to do this anyway) and that Performance Management is not going to be done in the usual way. It does all mean I can be more optimistic about how SEN students might have fared, and how those with exam concessions, especially anxiety related ones, might perform in my opinion, rather than on two given days in June. I am really pleased to have the opportunity to predict a lovely , able student a 7 , even though there was a 50:50 chance of complete meltdown in the summer exams. Thank God for coursework, as her mock result (minus concessions) was a high 4.

Rank order is very important. When normal exam results come out, one of the key things we look at is if the rank order looks about right. If it doesn't, we have more doubts about the marking.

It is difficult for a school which has a track record of poor results, no prior attainment data and a more able cohort this year. I should think there will be a limit to how much uplift they will be able to get compared to previous years. There won't be many schools which have students with no prior attainment data, plus significantly higher ability than all of the last few years. The Yellis data could be useful in this case. There might well be somewhere for this kind of circumstance to be explained.

Very interesting thread.
I didn’t know about this consultation but I think it is aimed at teachers not parents.
I think this system will favour the steady workers rather than those who put off revising until the night before the exam and still get a decent grade?

*Well this is interesting. Someone on twitter did a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient between his ranked mock results last year and his ranked actual A-level results and got a 0.89 correlation (very strong).

Might be worth heads of departments doing this to see how reliable their mock results are as a predictor of outcome ranking. twitter.com/adam_smithmaths/status/1251936902976098310?s=21*

Ever so grateful noblegiraffe! My GCSE students are pretty similar to previous years and I’m not worried there but my A Level students are the first lot to have been taught by me since Key Stage 3 all the way through and they are so much stronger than the previous two years that I have been secretly grateful I did two full 2hr 30 mocks back in Feb and March under exam conditions (our Yr 13 mocks are always in the Hall) and full marked coursework from each of them. I was on track for getting my first A*s again in two years. I have the papers and projects at the read if I have to fight for their marks! I’ll look at that ranking today whilst I start filling in my spreadsheet. Thanks again!

My main annoyance at A Level is we changed exam boards due to lack of support form previous board so really we have no real correlation, plus my subject was in its first year of 'reformed' examination last year at GCSE and A Level. Saying there is a wealth of statistical data to draw on to inform judgment is sometimes not true or credible.

Piggy I’d guess you’d still be able to rank them fairly accurately? I think that’s going to prove more important than the actual grade.

Oh , yes, tbh I am confident. I will just get a bit annoyed if data guy tries to overrule me!!

As a parent I'm not particularly concerned about this approach. My DS's UCAS predictions were clearly based on exam performance in summer 19 and then again in September 19. His most recent report updated those predictions in the light of tests taken in January. So I think they have a pretty good idea how he was doing. My only concern was they were reluctant to give an A* prediction for Maths but comments in the written text showed an expectation that he could get one. However, i also know that kids have good days and bad days when they sit exams and don't always perform as per their ability (I know from my own A level results).

I have two friends in senior roles in univerisities and they have said though they usually over offer because not all students achieve their predictions, this years its a buyers (students') market since there is an over-supply of places and they have had a significant shortfall in applications from overseas students due to Brexit. They are in dire financial straits and need student enrolment and fees. However, he has just been involved in an exercise similar to the schools problem looking at how many students they can fit into class, seminar and lecture theatres observing 2m social distancing. They may well have to re-configure how they teach and structure time with students - I'm not sure how that will impact on admissions. It may also be the case that some students who were planning to defer and take a year out do not do so this year - since there will be short supply of typical student low paid work and travel opportunities.