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 I would really like to hear from the teachers in the most deprived schools why they thought their students would achieve a twenty per cent improvement when compared with each of the previous school years

Disclaimer - I'm not a teacher! But I can see how quite easily - every year there are kids who under achieve - sat exam with a hangover, had bad hay fever, grandma died, split up with girlfriend, etc etc etc. Every year there a large numbers of shoo-ins who don't get what they were perfectly capable of - far more than happens the other way round.

Problem is of course that teachers had no way of knowing that if Paul had sat the exam he would have underperformed because he overslept and arrived half an hour late. Or whether it would have been David that underperformed because the bus broke down and he was late. So both Paul and David were awarded the same grade.

Something had to be done though. Pupils who had achieved grade A at N5 and at Higher and >90% in virtually every exam they ever did including prelims this year, were downgraded to a B because when the downgrading was done they were in the unfortunate position of attending a school in a very deprived area where the average grade was lower than the national average. So when they did the 'moderation' and they needed a lower % who had passed - they targetted schools with a lower average with zero consideration or regard for the individual pupils. By the same token when they were doing the balance, pupils grades were raised above the teacher estimate based on nothing more than the postcode of the school - those same teachers accused of 'inflated grades' were deemed to have under-graded in certain schools.

There was no good solution here but this one was really the only viable option they had. They fucked up royally.

where the average grade was lower than the national average
they targetted schools with a lower average
pupils grades were raised above the teacher estimate based on nothing more than the postcode of the school

This is all complete nonsense.

I neither agree nor disagree, just nail-bitingly await the L2 Btec and GCSE results in England next week. It really does make a difference to how both DS and I proceed. Ideally he'll get the grades to proceed to L3, he was on course to do so prior to lockdown. But uncertainty prevails.

However the die is cast and as the axe falls we'll deal with it; used to that as DS has had to negotiate years of 'the system' due to his ASD.

Of course, selfishly, I hope the 'algorithms' work in his favour.

Totally agree OP. Clear that something needed to be done but this has massively devalued the qualifications.

Why is Swinney not out of a job?

Because the SNP is a closed shop. Their MSPs and MPs are not allowed to criticise or vote against the party. Whatever they think about Swinney, they cannot voice it.

All a bit sinister.

As a parents whose child got straight As in prelims and in all class assessments and had teachers say As but got downgraded to two Ds. Yes, I do think they were right to cave. Yes there may be higher grades this year. But my goodness so what the kids have had a seriously stressful few months. I cant believe people would be annoyed at pupils now being given the grades they deserve based on class work and prelims after everything going on the last few months.

Pupils who had achieved grade A at N5 and at Higher and >90% in virtually every exam they ever did including prelims this year, were downgraded to a B because when the downgrading was done they were in the unfortunate position of attending a school in a very deprived area where the average grade was lower than the national average

I don’t think that this is correct. If the teachers’ predicted grades had reflected the previous years’ results at the school, there would have been no need for moderation of the results, as they would have been in line with expectations for that school.

So the downgrading took place because there was likely grade inflation to start with based on the past performance of that school.

Clearly you can have a more talented cohort from one year to the next but in all likelihood not to the extent represented by the predicted grades

Just to point out. It was only two subjects downgraded to D's. The rest were A's.

No universities will hold places in case Scottish students hit the required grades.

Not the case.

The students with conditional offers were going to be reassessed first, starting from next Monday. The Universities were quite willing to hold the places until those appeals were finished. There is always a period of time after results each year when some remarks are conducted quickly for conditional pupils.

Yes, the whole scenario was rock and a hard place and I wish the SG had held their nerve.

It was meant to be a two-part process and the 2nd part - the appeals process - didn't get a chance to pick up the pupils who deserved an upgrade. Unfortunately the Unionist parties and the MSM went hell for leather at the SG and incited such a fuss that it's make a mockery of the whole plan.

It was never about rich/poor schools or pupils, it was about what the statistics were in the past - in fact, it was the group in the lowest 40% SIMD who were given the biggest rise in passes, but they were also the group who were over-estimated the most by their teachers.

Sadly, there will now be a number of students going to jobs and HE who will struggle to cope with the level of work.

The SG were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

But @aragog universities are already making different offers to Scottish students because they sit different numbers of exams- ie your BBB vs AAB example doesn’t work because most Scottish students get offers based on 4 or 5 Highers and possibly also some Advanced Highers taken the year after. Yes that's what I thought

but they were also the group who were over-estimated the most by their teachers
I'm sorry, have you seen examples of work from those students? Because the SQA certainly haven't. We can see a higher level of awards than last year - what no-one can see is what that pupil would have got in the exam (as they didn't sit it) and only their teachers can/could see how they had performed in the year up till the end of March.
So statements like that are simply false.

Yes, they do give different grades. but what I mean is that they are not going to all of a sudden change the grades they have offered those Scottish students, to reflect the grade changes. They can't now say that they don't trust those grades so want the students in Scotland to have to now get a grade higher.

This fiasco was clearly avoidable had there been some degree of independent moderation such as spot checks on teacher assessments backed by evidence.

What is totally and utterly being overlooked here is that WE WERE IN LOCKDOWN.

How the bloody hell were teachers supposed to be pootling around collecting evidence and mock papers and homework from the kids when anything but essential travel was banned and you were only allowed out for exercise?

Well, my nephew got three As in his pre lims. He was given 3 Cs in his results. His friend, at a nearby private school, failed all his pre lims and, by his own admission, dicks around in class and was given 3 As.

None of it is fair.

How the bloody hell were teachers supposed to be pootling around collecting evidence and mock papers and homework from the kids when anything but essential travel was banned and you were only allowed out for exercise

To be fair, we had a teacher pop round to pick up my son’s iPad and charger in the middle of lockdown

We brought their work home with us when lockdown was announced. We collected anything else during our shifts in with the keyworker children. We set up google classrooms and work was submitted that way.
But the exam board rely on teachers to do the marking in normal circumstances, if we had sent work away, I'm not sure who or how it would have been looked at. Maybe some form of scanning? But markers all have meetings to be trained every year for consistency, I can't see how it would have worked.
I'd have been happy enough to have submitted appeals, I have the evidence, though could do without the extra stress just now for obvious reasons.

@MacduffsMuff

That is absolutely terrible. Form day 1 I said to my OH private schools will do great from this as no one will question their results.

I hope his change to the As he deserves

YANBU, they should have stuck to their guns. What a joke.

I’m glad they overturned the downgrades but I’m agog that’s they didn’t foresee or mitigate this mess ahead of results being given.

On the whole, they should’ve challenged the inflated grades earlier. The SNP seemed to sleepwalk into this and then do something populist and crowd pleasing as a reaction.

@OverTheRainbow88 he wasn't the only one in his year group with similar results. He was completely devastated. It's a shame these young people are just thought of as numbers/collateral damage to many people, as evidenced by some of the comments on this thread.

I agree with @myohmywhatawonderfulday.
I think that exams should have been taken in October and the university term should have started in January.

If the English boards do the same thing I'm going to be really pissed off. We did internal moderation based on the guidance from the government and if they ditch that now it will benefit children from schools who didn't bother to follow the guidance in the first place, and disadvantage students who attend schools where proper processes were followed.

As giraffe above states, there was a thing called Lockdown going on, which altered everything for everybody, including schools, teachers, students and parents; as well as everything else.

To possibly think that the varied emergency educational provisions put in place can supplant actual teaching by teachers to students would then place into question the whole point of schools, colleges and universities as central to education.

Maybe one day, but not now.

@ChloeCrocodile

and disadvantage students who attend schools where proper processes were followed.

Sorry what do you mean by this bit?