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.

But isn't that the whole point of the funds that have been given to schools in more deprived areas, to reduce the attainment gap? I'm not saying the gap would have narrowed by as much as it actually has, I'm just hoping that the scheme is working. I'm from a working class background, and education (and a few inspirational teachers 30 years ago) have given me a life that I shouldn't have been able to dream of.

Students & graduates are a key demographic for the Nats. They can’t piss off their own support base.

@noblegiraffe: I think you’re right in that you should be thinking “hmmm.. that’s odd” and the sudden increase in results should be looked into.

But what shouldn’t be done is that all children at the 40% school should automatically have their grades downgraded without looking at the actual individual child’s past results.

@KilljoysDutch

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.

Do you not read newspapers? There was a huge uproar prior to this.

Thank you Bejazzled. I am out of the loop on this.
I had avoid Scottish education stories now to keep my blood pressure in check. I don't have any children in this year's exam cohorts.

@titchy but what has happened here is that a kid has passed the driving test at 65%, but it’s automatically been downgraded to 50% as people who usually come from that area don’t do well in exams.

Ds got a 2 in English language mocks and a 9 in science.

We are actually very interested to see what this comes out as in actual results next week!

Realistically he's probably more a 3 in English and would have managed an 8 in science unless the questions were perfect for him!

Ds mock results were 2,3,6,6,6,8,9/9. I think we were already in the 'anything can happen' territory

I agree that a school who normally get 10% top grade and thus year said 30% top grade must be wrong somewhere. But 10% of those would still get the top grade in a normal year, so how do you decide which ones they are if you’re going purely by statistical analysis from previous years?

They surely knew when teachers submitted the grades that they didn’t match previous years. Couldn’t it have been pushed back to schools then to reassess? At least then it would be done by people who actually knew which kid might scrape a top grade on their good day and which kid would get a top grade standing on their head.

Everything about awarding grades without having a level has been poorly thought through in every country of UK at every stage. Kids are failing the qualifications they need for jobs, training and university without having the opportunity to take an exam. If that happened to your child, OP, you’d think it was unjust too.

The appeals process would be useless - no process would work fast enough to get the results before Universities require them. No universities will hold places in case Scottish students hit the required grades.

The whole thing has been a shambles.

Why is Swinney still in a job?

It's a difficult situation all round.

Perhaps university/college entrance will be easier because the universities will have places available which would otherwise have gone to overseas students who will perhaps not be attending.

Teachers do inflate grades, however hard they try to be impartial - they know their students and want them to succeed.

Inflated grades are meaningless - prospective employers will just look at the grades and think oh, that was Covid year, the grades will have been inflated.

Those taking their exams this coming academic year will deem it unfair that those in the previous year received higher grades than they were possibly due.

Remember hearing a couple of students complaining about the way the exam grades were going to be awarded - they were brother and sister, one doing O levels and one doing A levels (this was in England). The brother, as I remember, had received an E and an ungraded in is mock exams, but told the interviewer he would have turned it round by the actual exams , his sister said similar, with mock results of c grade and below, she reckoned she had been expecting A grades in her actual exams, because she'd been working hard but it was totally unfair because her grades would now be based on her mock results and her coursework......

Of course they should have looked into grade inflation. Why not sample folios and the like?

Isn’t it the fault of the schools in the deprived areas over inflating their children’s results in the first place. Why is blame not being put at their door?

The vast majority of Scottish pupils go to university in Scotland and fir the small numbet who apply to English unis their entry requirement are based on Highers and Advanced Highers or two sets of Highers done over two years, ie. Entry to Englush unis won't be solely based on this years results and will not disadvantage RUK pupils IMO.

I have a DD awaiting A level results so vested interest here but I think the right decision has been made. These young people need to be able to move on and why clog up school/uni/ exam board appeals for months? Have endless requests to resit/repeat the year? And so many will have personally suffered through lockdown already
Gen COVID are the current Y10 and 12 who must have all focus on them - they have lost six months teaching, may have a disrupted school year, mental health may have suffered during lockdown, every bit of energy needs to be focused on how to do best by next years exam candidates

Couldn’t it have been pushed back to schools then to reassess?

Exactly, schools with a different pattern of attainment to usual should be been required to defend this with examples of the students class work, home work, or mock papers.

Schools worked really hard to predict grades according to a published set of guidelines. The moderation process was clearly stated in advance.

Changing the rules at this stage makes the whole process - and resulting grades - meaningless. It’s like moving the goalposts weeks after a match and deciding that those near misses were goals after all.

I've lost respect for Nicola sturgeon over this, it's made a mockery of the results which are now hugely overinflated

But 10% of those would still get the top grade in a normal year, so how do you decide which ones they are if you’re going purely by statistical analysis from previous years?

Schools had to rank their students within each subject/qualification. This was considered to be the most important task, as we knew (at least until today) that grades would be moderated.

Isn’t it the fault of the schools in the deprived areas over inflating their children’s results in the first place. Why is blame not being put at their door?

So firstly, you're calling schools either straight up cheats or so incompetent that they actually don't know that their predictions are completely out of sync with reality - perhaps that is why they get poorer results in most years - but I still think it's quite a stretch and not a good one to claim either of those things about the schools. And indeed if it was the case, then the utter failing of these schools and teachers should be the headline, not that no effective moderation could be done so the least damage option was to just award the grades.

@KilljoysDutch

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.

That’s ridiculous Killjoy. The reversal was precisely because there was such an enormous uproar about a perceived disadvantage to more deprived students. Or do you think that Nicola just woke up one morning and spontaneously decided she’d got it wrong?

It is unfair to do this. It's unfair on the school pupils whose teachers tried to be as fair as possible and didn't inflate the grades. It's unfair on the pupils who generally deserved the grades they got and now will have people assuming that they didn't.
It's also unfair in that it clearly devalues the qualification as a whole. It makes a mockery of the qualification.
Next year universities may well raise the levels they expect from Scottish pupils in case this happens again.
Also teachers will raise their predicted grade next year, in the hope of it happening again, giving false expectations and upset to that cohort.

And next year we will have an outcry that the deprived schools results have dropped by 15%. But maybe there's not an election that NS is worried about in 2022.

What NS should have done was order an investigation to compare how schools have done compared to most years across the entire country. Not done a knee jerk popularist reaction. That is not the sign of a true leader. It is a sign of someone for whom popularity matters more than doing right.

I think 15% increase in grades is about right actually.
And I don’t think many people are understanding why there is a disparity...
If you have 4 students who you think all have about a 75% chance of getting an A grade you would predict them all that grade. In normal exams one of them probably would get the grade below. Which one would be impossible to predict when you are likely to be talking about 1-2 marks different. When this pattern is copied across all students it is obvious that the overall pass mark will rise.

the least damage option was to just award the grades.

Unfortunately this just moves the “damage” to other students - those whose schools made sure their predictions were not inflated who will now have relatively worse grades.

titchy clearly the mechanisms (whatever they are?) aren't working.

The positive of this shambles is that it has shone a light into the social injustices and how wide the educational gap is for children in Scotland.

It's also shone a light into people's attitudes to it and it's bloody depressing.
Computer says no. The end according to many posters.

I just can't wrap my head around getting wound up about some kids getting good news today when there is precious little to be happy about in the world right now.

And as dylan has stated some of these kids are only getting the grades they are due and entitled to had it not been for them being unfairly penalised due to their area/school.