A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

A* A B predicted here - BBB achieved.

Got into 1st choice uni and gutted not to get the As.

Product design course was all done and completed for Easter , was marked as an A* but not taken into consideration for grading awarded when it should have been 50% of the mark.

This is heartbreaking to see happening.

Reading this thread I simply do not see how anyone could have thought it was a good idea and signed off on the entire thing. It was obvious that it was going to result in a complete fiasco and disaster.

I feel for all the kids concerned - including the ones who got the marks they wanted. I remember on results day how awful it was if your friends didnt get their marks. There will also be this lingering guilt that maybe you didn't deserve the marks you got if you got good one. No one will have the real feeling that it was fair. None of it is credible. Its a complete an utter lottery not an algorythm.

This will result in life alternating decisions being made that will negatively impact some for the rest of their lives.

We are only now recovering from the shock of my dc’s French Bac results where the here were 23%fewer top grades than last year. A devastating end to seven years of hard work. Feeling for all these students.

And if individual schools have been downgraded below their average I assume they have come back?

I don't THINK they do - the reasons for whole cohort appeal,. at least those given initially, are IIRC really quite narrow and specific e.g. flooding, new head. I am not sure 'think the algorithm went wrong' is counted as grounds, so it is possible that the school will have to appeal each of the students individually.

Private schools do benefit as small cohorts did not have the same algorithm applied. If you had 5 or less in your group no change was made. 15 or less meant that the teacher grade was given more weight. Over that amount and the algorithm applied. Therefore smaller numbers had a more beneficial system applied and obtained higher than average results meaning the bigger FE colleges and Sixth Forms had to reduce grades so the overall percentages looked ok.

Bigvig, that's really interesting, because the sixth form colleges do seem to have been badly hit. Is there a source?

Standardisation and consideration of school past performance was vital, along with consideration of the ability of the cohort ....but these need to be done correctly and it looks like it hasn’t always been done correctly.

Absolutely agree. From the situation we’re in, I would like to see free appeals for schools with a robust process so individual students who have lost out via the standardisation process can be given what they deserve.

The head of the Association of Colleges has written to Gavin Williamson. They suspect that the algorithm has compensated for the fact that smaller centers could not be moderated by penalising larger centers, so as to keep down overall grade inflation.

If that's true then it's appalling.

feweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Letter-to-Gavin-Williamson-and-Sally-Collier-13.08.20.pdf

Standardisation and consideration of school past performance was vital, along with consideration of the ability of the cohort ....but these need to be done correctly and it looks like it hasn’t always been done correctly.

The problem with this is that it does benefit cash rich private schools and disadvantages able students in deprived state schools. The appeals process could deal with this - but only if the school can afford the appeal which they might not be able to in very deprived areas. I think the whole system shows up how unfair education is in this country.

This is not about making parents and students feel better. I am actually full of rage over this. Results below historical data and what we submitted (which weren't ridiculous grades for the students involved). We agonised over this. We put effort into this. And the students who have missed their offers are not the ones you would normally see in that situation (there's always some who cross their fingers and apply at the very limit with no insurance). It's all wrong. I have been doing this for a long time and have never known anything like it. It is at the top level we're seeing the biggest impact and it is just plain wrong.

Do kids know their CAGs as opposed to their UCAS predictions?

Dd asked for her this morning.

UCAS predictions - AAB
CAG - BBB
Results - BCE

Planning on appealing.

I understand what posters like Hiptight and Wombat are saying but still think this seems disgracefully unfair.

The way it has been done has taken away any autonomy an individual student had over their own outcomes.

It seems like there was nothing individuals could do to improve or mess up their results in the months running up to exams - it would all be determined by an alogorithm based on demographic, quality of school and performance of other students, past and present. Nothing about their results would be based on their own motivation, hard work and progress.

An algorithm might know that in a given school, a cohort of 10 English Lit students is likely to get 3 As , 3 Bs, 2 Cs and 2Ds. It doesn't know which individual students are going to work like crazy for 3 months, which are going to get nervous, which are going to receive a university offer they can achieve in their sleep and therefore slack off etc. Teachers know the pupils and have seen their recent work. Unless, as a collective group, the given grades looked unrealistic, they should have been accepted as a professional judgement. Most secondary teachers I know spent a huge amount of time and effort making sure their predictions were statistically realistic, not emotive.

Hi can'tkeepaway - see HPFA post. The exam boards on their websites are clear about how they have moderated and yes it does look like the bigger institutions have been hit the hardest.

I think it’s probably not as simple as lots of schools have been ripped off by the government and given their worst results ever.

However it is good headline stuff, along with focus on X% saw grades below their ucas/teacher prediction, instead of A level results are up by 2%.

It has been awful for students as a whole experience and the lack of clarity on appeals and last minute changes make the uncertainty stretch on, which in my mind is the worst thing about it all. However the media are determined to push the story of unfair grades and disappointment. There is much less focus on the large numbers who have done well and are into the inis they wanted. And zero mention that I’m normal years less than 20% get their ucas predictions. But it’s not a good story then is it.

So I don’t dispute there will be errors and there will be individuals and schools let down by the process, in the same way iffy exM papers and unreliable marking mean every year some students and departments and schools spend results day feeling gutted and knowing something has gone very wrong. It always happens and it always takes weeks to get to the bottom of it and get re-grades or for the board to dig their heels in and refuse, even though it’s clear something isn’t right. And that’s just within a school with parents and a culture of throwing lots of cash at remarks to try and get it sorted. In other places there is little culture of fighting the injustices and it’s just left. I expect it will be the same this year - some schools will fight hard where there’s injustice or just an oppprtunity for a higher grade which isn’t really deserved and there will be some redress, but also injustices which remain on peoples CVs forever.

Sorry, I don’t have loads of faith in the system I’m the best of times.

@cantkeepawayforever

Bigvig, that's really interesting, because the sixth form colleges do seem to have been badly hit. Is there a source?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/909035/6656-2_-_Executive_summary.pdf

My son's school prides itself on the accuracy of the predicted grades.

Yes, same here. My daughter has seen her CAG and her this morning her teachers went through with her all the evidence and data they used to come up with the grades they submitted.

It was about what DD and I were expecting - taking into account grades given for course work, work in class, mocks (taken end of September), regular exam condition testing, progress tracking, progress reports sent home and parents evenings.

She was submitted BB after getting BC in mocks and was awarded EE - Cs, even Ds, OK, but Es?

She also did a BTEC and was submitted a distinction but was awarded a merit - she’s happy enough with that though

Some schools may have over inflated grades, but I really don’t think DD’s school did

Our education system locally has always been considered ‘failing’. DD’s school has always been at the top locally for exam results by a massive margin, yet they’ve had their worst set of results for a couple of years, others have had their best

School is appealing the A level grades, she’s happy with the btech. She had an unconditional offer for the uni and the course that she wanted so she’s fine, but she is disappointed and I really feel for those who have lost uni places, it’s horrendous.

It's all very well talking about appeals but there is no process at all for that, and until there is, there are no appeals. Even then, there will be too many to handle. I can't see any way Williamson can keep his job after this, and I can't see the appeals process ever really taking off.
People are making a lot of statements about the algorithm (it disadvantages large groups with consistent track records for example) now that it is in the public domain, but it is unwise to suggest that deprived areas have been more disadvantaged - I am pretty sure it would have been built to contain some bias towards disadvantaged areas for political reasons and part of the problem with it will be how those biases are embedded.

@bbn81

I agree with *@WombatChocolate* students normally go into results day feeling doubtful and unsure as to how the exam went. This hasn't happened this year. I am also starting to wonder who is filling all these uni places that so many seemed to have missed out on. There must be some students out there who got the results they were expecting.

Well of course this is the case.

The voices we are hearing are from people who haven’t got what they wanted or expected. They have a vested interest in saying they were unfairly downgraded. Whether they be teachers and headmasters, the parents or the child.

A lot of sharp elbows encourage sycophantic educators to inflate predicted grades. None want to admit that the average pupil taught by the average teacher in an average school wasn’t capable of an A or even a B.

The appeals process needs to be maintained for the exceptional pupil for that will have outperformed their school, teachers and peers.

Weren’t you all demanding the schools went into lockdown though?

What did you expect?

@SmileEachDay

I’m confused by this -

Table 1 shows that children from lower socio economic backgrounds are more likely to have been downgraded.

Table 2 shows that independent schools she the biggest jump in top grades (by quite some margin)

It’s difficult to argue that this system treats all children the same regardless of background when looking at this?

Table 1 does indeed show that children from lower socio economic backgrounds are more likely to have been downgraded but it also shows how the estimated grades for lower socio economic were the most highly inflated too

Yes, they will have made sure the less advantaged schools didn’t see grades lowered more than elsewhere. This will have been high up list of political disaster to avoid.

Someone gave figures up thread for bigger %drop in grades in affluent schools than less advantaged.

Doesn’t fit the story lots of people would like to push though.

@popcornlover

Weren’t you all demanding the schools went into lockdown though?

What did you expect?

That people who’ve had months to come up with a system came up with a decent one fit for purpose

I honestly dont know a better way. It has been shown that teachers have produced over inflated grades in many cases with no real means of backing it up. That is why the boards needed to step in. If we take out own indvidual circumstances out of of this.

You have a school that has over the last 3 years produced in say Maths

2 A's
2 B's
and the rest are lower. The school puts in grades for this year that dont match anything they have achieved in recent years. I know this doesnt take into account any individual students but that is what the appeal is for. If you really think your child has been disadvantaged

Get the evidence together
Get the mocks
Get the school reports for that child
Any prizes they might have obtained to back this up
Or if you dont have any of this and some people are already saying that they dont then take the exam again in Oct or take a gap year and resit.

But honestly if they have been left to the teachers I am sorry to say we would have ended up with vastly inflated grades for this year and not enough university places. Or children at uni who couldnt cope with the pace because there grades were artificially inflated.

If there is a child who is in a failing/inadequate school and they were expecting to get AAA then there are a very very small minority of the entries this year IMHO. They might be your child so get the evidence together, put your boxing gloves on and prove them wrong.

UCAS predictions are almost always aspirational and often pupils dont make it because the exams give you the final result but of course this year we dont have this option.

DD was predicted AAB and got BCC. School are already on it because it seems that the majority of her years predictions have been downgraded.

I am just thankful that she got in to her first choice with a ..... whats the word? Where you dont need any particular grades?! That! So it isnt actually going to impact her in a practical way but she worked damn hard and deserves to have that work acknowledged.

Wtfdoipick

Yep. I agree.

I don’t understand why there is the difference at the other end though - independent schools have a considerably larger raise in A/A* grades since last year.