A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

My DD was predicted B, B, C. She got C, E, U. She has lost her university place and is devastated.

In her class no one got their first choice of university because of down grades. Half the class have not been able to get into university through clearing because their grades are so low. The A* students achieved C's.

but if they all get A grades how on earth do se this not make them utterly meaningless

I’m not talking about getting As.... my students worked their asses of aiming for C-Es which I’m pretty certain way more would have got had they sat the exam compared to what they have now.

@HipTightOnions

today has shown none of the evidence means anything and someone is sticking pins in lists of names and awarding them random grades.

No! It’s not random. Lots of grades have been changed at my school. It might look random to the individuals concerned, but the ranking we made has absolutely been maintained.

Our ranking has also been maintained. The only issue is that while the bottom end have all got what we predicted, the top end have all been squashed down, so that we have our worst results for a number of years with our strongest (using GCSE data so externally assessed) cohort for a number of years.

Teachers’ predictions are pretty irrelevant actually. The 2 key pieces of information you need are:

• What is the normal breakdown of grades in this subject at this school?
• Where was my DC placed in the ranking?

@DayB1Day

I’m worried about my dc getting onto Alevel courses if it is such a shit show.

If the sixth form is in the same school they will probably go on their knowledge of the pupil and their capabilities rather than the algorithm though.

Here in Wiltshire at an average (rated ‘good’) comp, most students have been downgraded by between 1 and 3 grades - many expecting As got Bs and Cs - I am extremely proud of my daughter who got A* B B especially as her brother is in prison! I am hopeful that our Government may do a Scottish style u-turn - it has been a bloody tough year for our youngsters.

DS sons were a mess predicted A* B B. Got BCC🤷‍♀️.
He goes to a private school the grades were much much lower than expected. Several kids who were predicted Bs on some subjects got marked down to E"s😮 loads missed their unis and went off to clearing panic. Total shock
It's a total mess. Normally they'd all be out celebrating, today they are all just hanging around. It's really rocked a lot of them. As if covid hadnt messed with a lot if their mental states enough already, someone decided to hit them with this too.
School have nothing to say, they are sticking the the line OFQUAL are gods🤮

I'm finding theseresults appalling and terrifying at the same time. Poor kids.

GCSE results awaited next Thursday and this situation is making us all very angsty.

I think thr blame here lies with schools. The results have been brought back to normal parameters, because such a. High percentage had been forecast to achieve more than normal, so for example 30 percent downgraded due to 30 percent more achieving more than normal.

The whole thing has a knock on, so for example unis give an offer based on results, if a student achieves it, they legally need to offer the place, but with thirty percent more achieving it they wouldn’t have the space.

Individual kids will suffer, because some would do better than their mocks, others worse, so will benefit, but they need to look at it at the macro level.

If schools had kept their overall results roughly the same as previous years this wouldn’t have happened, but we’ve had schools now predict so many higher passes that it took the system down.

So for me, schools are to blame, for submitting results saying their students would achieve thirty percent more than the school has ever achieved. Forcing the downgrading and impacting the individual.

I feel extremely lucky reading this - my DD's UCAS predictions were BCC and so was her uni offer.

Her mocks were a shitshow and eventually she admitted she got CEE.

Today she got BBC so delighted and off to her uni of choice.

Her school is a comp - they usually do well and get a few into Oxbridge/Bristol /St Andrews etc. The teacher I asked said that some of their grades had changed - some had gone up- but they were generally happy.

@HipTightOnions

Teachers’ predictions are pretty irrelevant actually. The 2 key pieces of information you need are:

• What is the normal breakdown of grades in this subject at this school?
• Where was my DC placed in the ranking?

From a teaching point of view I agree (with the added piece of information of strength of cohort - I'm sure that was mentioned as another piece of data to be used?)

The thing is, on a macro level, algorithms and schools can predict reasonably accurately performance of year groups of perhaps 150+. The outcomes look right and the algorithm this year gives about the right overall outcomes at each grade.

At a smaller class level and certainly individual level, it doesn’t really work. The school might know that usually 20% get A*-A and they might be able to name 1 person that would pretty much definitely get it, but the other 3 who make up the 20% could be any of 9 or 10 other students.

So an A*-A is possible for all of these 11 students and they are all predicted it, but no one really knows who the 4 to get it will be. All 11think they will get it and 7 will be disappointed. The children on MN are the 7 disappointed ones.

When you’ve sat an exam and are disappointed, you know your performance led to your grade. When there’s an algorithm you feel you never had a chance and it was all beyond yourself.

@HipTightOnions

today has shown none of the evidence means anything and someone is sticking pins in lists of names and awarding them random grades.

No! It’s not random. Lots of grades have been changed at my school. It might look random to the individuals concerned, but the ranking we made has absolutely been maintained.

That's not the case at other schools though.

There are 3 A pupils at DD's schools who have A GSCE's, A* predictions and none of them have been given higher than a B.

For some schools it's been random. Even DD's Head Teacher is saying there has been zero logic applied at her school and even they can't work out some of the workings.

DD was predicted AAA and got BBC, another girl who was predicted AAA* got CCC. Her best mate was predited CCC and got BCC. Another lad was predicted CCC and got BBC.

They've had considerably their worst year ever.

@Bluntness100 I resent that. We spent ages making sure we got this right and they were in keeping with previous years allowing for cohort differences. The changes I'm seeing do not reflect the statistics being released officially. It's a complete and utter mess. They had 5 months to get this right.

The hardest hit at DD's school has been quite a number of children who were predicted CCC who've been given EEE or EEU. A few of them have lost their uni places completely.

[quote GrammarTeacher]@Bluntness100 I resent that. We spent ages making sure we got this right and they were in keeping with previous years allowing for cohort differences. The changes I'm seeing do not reflect the statistics being released officially. It's a complete and utter mess. They had 5 months to get this right.[/quote]
Agree with this. We also spent ages (and had internal moderations) to ensure we were roughly in line with previous years. Last year we had one B, this year none - when this year we had a stronger cohort?!

[quote GrammarTeacher]@Bluntness100 I resent that. We spent ages making sure we got this right and they were in keeping with previous years allowing for cohort differences. The changes I'm seeing do not reflect the statistics being released officially. It's a complete and utter mess. They had 5 months to get this right.[/quote]
Exactly the same here. Our A grade students deserved their As.

It's incredibly hard for the students and clearly there are going to be instances where grades have been changed unfairly - but what's the alternative now that we are where we are? If they 'do a Scotland' and go with teachers' predicted grades then that's massively unfair on those students who attend schools which tried to be scrupulous in making fair predictions and didn't wildly inflate grades. Also, what about those who aren't going on to FE? How would you feel if your 2019 A level child was up for a job against a 2020 child whose CV showed a set of massively inflated A level grades?

@Bluntness100

I think thr blame here lies with schools. The results have been brought back to normal parameters, because such a. High percentage had been forecast to achieve more than normal, so for example 30 percent downgraded due to 30 percent more achieving more than normal.

The whole thing has a knock on, so for example unis give an offer based on results, if a student achieves it, they legally need to offer the place, but with thirty percent more achieving it they wouldn’t have the space.

Individual kids will suffer, because some would do better than their mocks, others worse, so will benefit, but they need to look at it at the macro level.

If schools had kept their overall results roughly the same as previous years this wouldn’t have happened, but we’ve had schools now predict so many higher passes that it took the system down.

So for me, schools are to blame, for submitting results saying their students would achieve thirty percent more than the school has ever achieved. Forcing the downgrading and impacting the individual.

If the results had been normalised then some schools wouldn't be reporting their worse results ever and others the best. The algorithm is clearly flawed.

@Bluntness100

I think thr blame here lies with schools. The results have been brought back to normal parameters, because such a. High percentage had been forecast to achieve more than normal, so for example 30 percent downgraded due to 30 percent more achieving more than normal.

The whole thing has a knock on, so for example unis give an offer based on results, if a student achieves it, they legally need to offer the place, but with thirty percent more achieving it they wouldn’t have the space.

Individual kids will suffer, because some would do better than their mocks, others worse, so will benefit, but they need to look at it at the macro level.

If schools had kept their overall results roughly the same as previous years this wouldn’t have happened, but we’ve had schools now predict so many higher passes that it took the system down.

So for me, schools are to blame, for submitting results saying their students would achieve thirty percent more than the school has ever achieved. Forcing the downgrading and impacting the individual.

If the teachers' predictions were so over inflated why weren't teachers/schools asked for the evidence to back up their predictions? Rather than just assuming they were wrong and downgrading.

Every teacher I know went through a painstaking, meticulous process to ensure the predictions were realistic and accurate. They all have lots of data and other evidence to support their decisions.

@sunglasses123

I honestly believe that if there is clear evidence from the school regarding a mock grade and other things, Year prizes, school reports and such like then these appeals will be much stronger. However if your appeal is just because your Mum thinks you deserve it that is completely different. There are also the GCSE's to take into account too. If someone obtained say a A* in Maths they COULD be assumed to do well in Maths A Level.

I also think that some schools saw this as an opportunity to big themselves up and they were fantasy grades resulting in disappointment all round.

And for those who are saying that Eton pupils will all get A*'s - well thats like me saying that all Inadequate schools should only expect to get D's and E's.

My DS didnt go to Eton but somewhere quite similar. Its a very mixed bag on the A Level front.

I’ve seen so many students having both mock and centre assessed grades of straight As being downgraded to Bs and Cs. How is that a result of “fantasy grades” when they’re based on their actual mock results?

If your DS is in this cohort then I wouldn’t really worry, if he’s at a top elite private school I’m certain that somehow they’ll manage to get it sorted. All fairly and with exactly the same chance as a state school, of course.

The powers that be surely had enough time to go directly to the schools they suspected of taking the piss and ask them for evidence of the sudden upturn in pupil performance.

This is done in teacher-assessed subjects at GCSE. Dd’s school last year gave them all low assessed grades for Music as the previous year the exam board had swept in and called foul on their very generous assessment of pupil performance.

Yes, key things are usual % Getting each grade in the subject, plus rank order.

If your school over 3 years only gets 10% into the top grade and you are ranked 20% down the ranking, regardless of the grade the teacher gives, you won’t be getting the top grade.

People forget that the integrity of the system year to year is held by maintaining similar %s getting each grade. They can’t all get As.

This is always true. Usually quite who gets the top grades for that school was determined by the exam. The school might have expected 4 top grades but not known which 4 out of perhaps 12 students it would be. What was different this year is they had to rank them - so essentially pin down who the top 4 were. Teachers will have considered prior performance, plus also ability and capacity to pull it together at the end, knowing sometimes rather lazy students who are bright get their act together. In usual years, the students themselves determined who were the top few via exam, but this year the school had to decide and this then removed the chance for those who previously might have scraped into the top few to get the top grade (all nationally of course,,.but surprisingly consistent within a school over a 3-5 year average). That was the difference this year. But it didn’t mean lots didn’t get the top grade who would have in other years - much smaller %s in lots of schools actually get top grades than many parents think .....and actually their kids aren’t in the top x% needed to get there.