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.

The method used to moderate down was almost certainly illegal (Data Protection Act automated processing with significant impact) so there was no way it could stand, it was clearly inequitable - and inequitable towards students from the most disadvantaged areas (your results moderated down based on the students who attended your school in previous years)

It would create a horrible precedent if it's allowed that would create even more motivation to game and cheat yourself into particular schools as that genuinely is the only way to get good grades in these situations.

Giving everyone predicted does as you say have a different risk - but the specific and I think harshest risk - that of under grading superior students from poor schools is mitigated by it.

@Dylaninthemovies1

Couldn’t agree more 😊

Also different year cohorts have different grades. One year we had a weirdly able year group the next year randomly had major behaviour issues throughout and were less able so our grades year in year looked sooo different!

Whole thing is a fucking shambles, ill thought out with no awareness of repercussions. The exams should have gone ahead, socially distanced and a caveat written on certificates to say that the results should be viewed bearing in mind that students missed several months of schooling.

To literally downgrade their exam results on the basis of where they went to school is a kick in the teeth on top of everything else.

No, they were downgraded because their teachers were overly optimistic. You can’t possibly look at the stats and disagree with that.

dylaninthemovies couldn't agree more. What an absolute slap in the face for a child from a deprived background who was penalised just because of this.

The odds already stacked against them.
I can relate to how that must have felt also coming from a deprived area and getting good results.

And you know what? So what if a few have benefited out of it. They aren't benefiting from private schooling, tutors and probably parents who can encourage them or help them learn. I can't get upset about a small number of kids who may have got an uplift.

Most kids in more affluent areas already have a head start, you don't hear anyone up in arms about how that is unfair.

by using the schools past performance rather than the individuals past performance.

But the individual’s past performance was taken into account. That’s what informed the CAG and ranking.

@noblegiraffe but they downgraded swathes of children based on the SCHOOLS past performance; not the child’s. There were many instances of kids predicted to get an A (indicated from their prelim marks) but they were downgraded to a C due to the schools past performance

And you know what? So what if a few have benefited out of it. They aren't benefiting from private schooling, tutors and probably parents who can encourage them or help them learn. I can't get upset about a small number of kids who may have got an uplift

It’s not a small number of kids getting an uplift.

And what you appear to be saying is that results should be given to kids in a way that appeals to social justice rather than actual ability.

but they downgraded swathes of children based on the SCHOOLS past performance; not the child’s

Yes, because the school’s past performance showed that the teachers were chancing their arm when they submitted their CAGs.

A kid who got an A in prelims and a C in the assessed results could appeal for free.

14 per cent increase is ludicrous. I hope England and Wales don't follow suit. A levels used to be Gold Standard. Now this year given out like confetti. Exams are.not a perfect system but is fairest system we have.

Grade inflation is not new. I scored 100 percent on Eng Lang exam 35 years ago and got A grade. Now students scoring 95 per cent get A *. University's 20 years ago gave very few first class degrees about 1-2 per cent Now nearer to 20 per cent.

Employers will know results from 2020 are not to be trusted.

Totally unfair to use school performance data to weight the grades. They should have just used pupil data.

No, they were downgraded because their teachers were overly optimistic. You can’t possibly look at the stats and disagree with that

I’d have agreed with you had many of them not been downgraded significantly lower than their prelims. Can’t understand why this wasn’t the basis for the results then they should have been able to justify through coursework if they had made improvements since then.

It will all work out in the end. This will give some bright kids in deprived areas a well deserved boost. The middle class children will be fine as they usually are.

Unfortunately we are too far in to do the right thing which was cags with evidence/moderation by centre to back up those claims.
They chose statistical modelling as it's cheaper and didn't involve access to school buildings.

They could even have pulled out the ones where cags were signif different to history and ask for explanation (entry scores of that cohort, assessment data etc).

But that takes a few months to actually do altogether.

Alas, we cannot time travel so that leaves two options -

So we either go with a previous cohorts results and apply it to this cohort. Not ideal because people are individuals and anyone who teaches knows every class is different.

Or, we go with cags, predicted by the teachers who know the kids, who have a vested interest in them doing well as will naturally lean towards the better grade to support them.

Neither reliable.

Rock vs hard place. No winning option unfortunately.

And before anyone comes up with the ever unusual idea that they should have sat the exams - no, the trauma around closures, effects of having COVID themselves, grieving for lost parents, disadvantages of lack of internet or resources and support from home (especially in those areas impacted by the grade moderation) would have had an unfair impact on many students making their exams an also unrealistic reflection of their studies.

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.

Agree.

I don't think they've changed grades because some one shouted loudest. I think they have changed them because they acknowledged that what actually happened, compared to what students and schools would happen, didn't match up. They based it too much on schools as a group, rather than individuals, taking very little of a pupil's actual previous attainment, such as GCSEs (in the case of A levels), coursework and classwork based work, into account.

They couldn't use the old appeals system as that had already been changed for this year as it was. Individuals weren't able to appeal this year, only schools as a whole.

And I hope that the rest of the UK make some form of amends.These children shouldn't be penalised any more than they already have done.

Fairest thing to do would be to sit exams next year and hold them back 12 months.

“ And what you appear to be saying is that results should be given to kids in a way that appeals to social justice rather than actual ability.”

The way that the algorithm calculated it meant that many children did not get appropriate marks based on their actual ability: they got downgraded marks based on their schools past performance: and that was much more likely to happen to a child from a deprived area.

The appeals process may be free: but it can be time consuming, and frankly a middle class parent is much more likely to be savvy and pushy enough to make sure their child’s marks were all appealed.

Do Scotland not do anything like SATs to assess the strength of a cohort? National reference tests?

The problem now is that is the rest of the Uk don't make amendments then it could place the Scottish students at an unfair disadvantage to the rest - which can affect university acceptances, etc.

All we were asked to put in was a band (grades here are in 2 bands) and then a sub band (new for this year) and then rank pupils.

There was no subject by subject guidance. Some subjects are 60% practical (Drama / PE) and had not done final assessments. If external examiners had been, this was ignored. Coursework was picked up but not marked.

We put in marks that were in line with our previous three year average. We had entire bands of pupils moved down without any reference to the ranking. We had kids moved down at Higher with band 1 A at N5 and kids moved up with band 3 B at N5. They paid no attention to a pupil's prior achievement at all. They ignored performance in similar subjects (Kids got AAAAD in spite of being predicted AAAAB).

Results were left as is far more in some subjects than in others. Smaller subjects with fewer entries were left while big subjects were subjected to statistical downgrades.

It wasn't just trying to keep results in line. It looked like individual pupils / ranks / profiles overall had been completely ignored in favour of random reallocation of results.

Pupils ranked first in a band were moved down while those ranked second were left.

I don't think they had a choice. My own subject (English) would have been easy to provide appeal evidence for. Much harder for other subjects.

It was an unholy mess. We had this in 2000 when the SQA awarded results in subjects pupils had not sat or which were totally wrong. Teachers have a long memory and this set of results were not wrong because they moderated them down, they were just wrong.

I think they needed to have a revision but I agree the way they did it is t helpful either.

Overall the grades were up by 1% on last year. Think that's pretty standard year on year?

The issue was the divide and why differing postcodes had difference revision percentages.

But I guess where teachers in high achieving schools and postcodes also inflated results they didn't want to bring them down whilst also bringing up those who were downgraded.

Surely teachers have actual assessment grades?

I know my ds school have grades for tests and last papers and mocks etc. If they asked to look you can see what teachers have have on the system compared to what they put in.

The only thing I can see may have happened is teachers have all done the grade up from mock estimate?

noble giraffe
Do you honestly believe kids in affluent areas get their results as a result of true ability?

Nothing at all to do with good nurturing or a safe peaceful place to study at home or extra tuition on the subject and exam technique.

My child will have all these things are more and I'm so grateful I have the resources to do this but I won't pretend that this makes them more deserving or intelligent than loads of others who won't get these opportunities.

Funny how much of an uproar there is now it's advantaging poorer students then there was when the more wealthy students had the advantage. Almost like the poor need to remember their place and not get ideas above their station.

It's all shambles as far as I can tell. They should have let the kids sit their exams, it wouldn't have been to difficult. Schools where open throughout lockdown, it could have worked if the focus would have been on core subjects.
Truth is, you can look at mock grades and teachers assessment, but most children are still learning how to tackle an exam, where gaps are and working on revision for stuff from the last 18 months.

As it stands, the 2020 school levers are screwed either way.

Anyone would think there is a Scottish election next year at which these young people will be eligible to vote.

Indeed.