To think that the Scottish government should not have caved over exam results?

[Notthemessiah]

So the Scottish government have caved in and have given their students the grades that their teachers have said they should get, despite the fact that overall they are massively inflated compared to previous years actual real results.

AIBU to think that this will massively penalise those pupils at schools where teachers were actually honest and realistic about their students likely results and instead benefit those who chose fantasy figures either through actual deceit, sheer wishful thinking or believing that the grades would be downgraded by some kind of system anyway.

Everyone was bleating about how it was unfair that pupils going to worse-performing schools got their results downgraded, but the stats don't lie - theirs were much more inflated compared to previous years that those from better-performing schools and it's ridiculous to think that all of them were suddenly going to improve this year.

It was always going to be an unfair system whatever happened but this just turns this year's results into a total joke - how universities, employers etc are expected to interpret them and compare them to other years is anyone's guess.

I hope that this doesn't happen in England and Wales too but it's hard to see how it can't - otherwise it puts Scottish students at a big advantage over their English and Welsh compatriots.

YANBU OP

Just summed up my thoughts. What a shitshow

The appeal process should have been used instead

Surely these results can't be straightforwardly compared to previous years anyway because of the massive changes in teaching and assessment due to corona?

It does feel like whoever shouts loud enough will get what they want. Its made a total mockery of the moderation, and now puts terrible pressure on the English/Welsh exam boards.

They can't win, can they? There's literally no way they could have come out of this without pissing some people off. I think on balance they've made the right call.

I agree, should have held their nerve and allowed it been taken to individual appeals as the moderation. This in many cases with prelim and other evidence would have led to the correct result.
Now what we have is an enormous jump in the annual pass rate for Nat 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers which when compared against previous years and those to come in the next few years will look ridiculously inflated.
What's happened today has devalued the results completely and may well lead to employers etc feeling that 2020 results are less valuable than other years.
Will also be interesting to see if universities will demand higher subsequent conditions from S6 from those school returners who have 2020 results as part of their S5 results.
Mess and a blatant attempt to please the people ahead of next years election.

If you look at the positive side, what it might do is encourage or get someone into further education or a job they might not have previously got. This could help people who wouldn't have previously got a chance.

Is it your child who didn’t get the grade they deserve, OP?

@Kay1341

Surely these results can't be straightforwardly compared to previous years anyway because of the massive changes in teaching and assessment due to corona?

They could have been vaguely compared before this but certainly not any more.

It's less the ability to compare between years and more the fact that this is rewarding those students whose teachers exaggerated their results the most, either because they were wanting to give them an advantage or, more likely, to make the school (and themselves) look better in terms of results.

Those who were honest are the ones whose students will be most penalised - seems like that's just the way the world works these days.

I've no idea why they decided to moderate using previous results for each school, it isn't fair, doesn't make sense and continues to perpetuate the divide between better off and poorer areas. What they should have done is base the grades solely on each student's performance using course work and prelim results as evidence. If any school came out overall as very different from previous years results then that could have been investigated.

There was a girl on the news saying she got 94% in a prelim, predicted an A, then downgraded to a B because of the school's previous performance. Now that just isn't fair

@Enoughnowstop

Is it your child who didn’t get the grade they deserve, OP?

Don't have a child doing a-levels at the moment, so no - nice insinuation though.

I completely disagree OP.
I doubt the teachers lied etc as you describe and over-inflated the grades much.

So, you are able to recognise that there are thousands of students out there who have received results that do not reflect what they are capable of?

Absolute shambles.

Either their original policy was well thought through and worth backing, or they were winging it.

So they are either craven or lack the courage of their convictions, or stupid. Probably both.

So now we have the best exam results in the history of the country. When everyone got to mark their own homework. What a coincidence.

They bottled it and have destroyed the integrity of the qualifications.

I don’t see England doing the same thing.

It is a shambles but the real scandal is that exams were cancelled at all. It was knee jerk reaction to a new and fast changing situation. They should have locked down earlier but enabled socially distanced exams to take place.

I understand what you are saying Op, but they were in between a rock and hard place.
The method used to decide the grades based on previous school data penalised intelligent , hardworking students at low performing schools and therefore could be regarded as discriminatory. However, I agree that the appeals process should have been utilised in cases such as these.
I am interested to know what will happen in England

I think the damage done by having one anomalous year of results is far lesser than the damage that would have been done to individual futures if the moderated results stood.
This way, young people can go on to college / university and there's a danger they will find it too challenging or not have the necessary exam-skills but that will come out in the first year. At least there will be students in first year next year.
The other way, individual futures were properly ruined as many courses would not take them on resits and courses would be under-full.

@Oblomov20

I completely disagree OP. I doubt the teachers lied etc as you describe and over-inflated the grades much.

Except they did, the grades are up by nearly 15%. That is a massive inflation.

@noblegiraffe

They bottled it and have destroyed the integrity of the qualifications.

I don’t see England doing the same thing.

Agreed. Total shambles. Not one justifiable educationally, although maybe politically.

Feel sorry for next years cohort tbh.

Hope to god England doesn't go the same way

So it’s ok for them to decide that because you come from a deprived area you aren’t capable of getting good grades? Granted there will be more people in these schools getting lower grades but what about those who deserve and are capable of high grades who are not getting them because they go to what’s deemed a poor school. And likewise those in good schools who don’t perform well have now got higher grades than they may have got sitting the exams.

So many kids getting less than what they got in their prelims doesn’t seem right.

And yes the decision to cancel exams was a poor one. They could have been done safely quite easily, and grade boundaries adjusted to account for the disruption.

@Oblomov20

I completely disagree OP. I doubt the teachers lied etc as you describe and over-inflated the grades much.

Doubt all you like, but the figures don't lie - unless you really believe that all of those schools were going to improve by 15% this year.

I completely disagree. I’m from one of the most deprived areas in Scotland, but received excellent exam marks at Standard Grade: so probably 7A* and and A at English GCSe level. If this happened this year, my grades would have been significantly downgraded because my school generally didn’t have high marks. Whereas a child in the nearby affluent area of Bearsden would have already had numerous advantages to get those same marks would have been very unlikely to have a significant downgrade in marks.

Kids from deprived areas already have a much harder climb up the ladder of success with multiple difficulties. This exam results fiasco basically just kicked the fucking ladder away from them entirely. The Scottish government were right to listen and take action

@Enoughnowstop

So, you are able to recognise that there are thousands of students out there who have received results that do not reflect what they are capable of?

As I said, it was always going to be impossible to be totally fair and there would always be some winners and losers regardless of what system they used, but to use no system at all? It turns it into a joke.

I don’t think there was any good solution to this but surely the very worst solution was excessively penalising kids from poor areas, who are already penalised by virtue of attending poor performing schools?

Universities will find a way to figure out who to take. At the end of the day this is a blip caused by events out of the control of these kids, and it’s not right to penalise them for it.