A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

Appeal - there is no process yet, no-one knows how, there will be huge numbers and no-one dedicated to deal with the appeals.
Resit - waste a whole year, how to top up the learning with tutors etc.

Not like either of the above really work.

@Kitmerow

I don’t understand the outrage.

They don’t have to just accept these grades - they can appeal or sit the exam in the autumn.

Kids have lost uni places.

To resit they's have to give up a year - there are no jobs for them to go and do. Plus there's no guidance yet as to how schools, who are already going to have to catch next year's cohort up, are going to facilitate resits. Not to mention not everyone can afford the cost to resit.

Appeals haven't even had proper outlines yet as to what is going to count as a "proper" mock and what isn't.

Also appeals cost. School budgets are hammered as it is. The fact they will have to spend money on this is ridiculous.

Lots of downgrades here too. A student, down to a B. They were top performers in every assessment and got an A in their mock.

Another student worked really hard to get a C and had been consistent in that, got a C in the mock, I predicted a D in exams only to find out they've been given a U this morning.

It's terrible. Why the hell ask for a teacher's professional opinion if you are going to completely disregard it? Shambles.

70% of the girls at my daughters grammar school where down graded.

I believe AQA have removed fees for appeals. Just seen a letter from them published on Twitter.

They don’t have to just accept these grades - they can appeal or sit the exam in the autumn.

How? Where? With what help? Has the government announced additional teaching for children who haven't been in school since March? Or are you assuming that the parents will facilitate all of this? What about children who don't have parents who can sort this out for them?

@Kitmerow

I don’t understand the outrage.

They don’t have to just accept these grades - they can appeal or sit the exam in the autumn.

Fine for a kid in a well off family. More difficult for one from a deprived family who didn't particularly want them to go to uni in the first place but had the support of their school.

Taking a year out isnt easy for everyone.

Others will be pressured to take a course they don't want to do at a university they didn't want to go to.

Saying its easy is nonsense.

Why the hell ask for a teacher's professional opinion if you are going to completely disregard it? Shambles.

Unless we had a very small cohort, the only relevant input from teachers was the ranking order.

I think they had to ask for teachers’ predictions (CAG) because not doing so would have been terrible PR. Well, that backfired, didn’t it.

My child is going to have to resit as he didn’t get the grades for the RAF. Universities might be downgrading admission requirements but employers are not. I just don’t understand even how the schools did the CAG results. His UCAS was ACD. His term 4 assessment was ACC. His CAG was CDD and his result was CDE. Yet in March we had received an email from the school praising my child for his big improvement in attainment.

Gavin Williamson needs to resign.

Gavin Williamson needs to resign.
Absolutely he does. And I say this as a previously fairly staunch Tory who is starting to love Keir. Just too many ill thought through knee jerk reactions. I could run the shop better myself.

@lyralalala

If they weren't going to trust the teacher grades they should have asked for mock grades, GCSE grades and GCSE mocks, plus any other relevant marks for each pupil as well as the teacher grade. Then used all of the information to make a grade per pupil.

There was plenty of time.

@lyralalala Funny you should say this. My DC is a teacher, head of subject, who actually compiled a mini dossier comprising exactly that information as well as evidence from workbooks and the school's own end of module assessments. The grades they submitted were actually the same as the mock grades as they had the foresight to suspect that something like this would happen. Even with all those precautions, around 30% of students had their grades lowered. Thankfully, nobody lost out on a university place due to this and the school is well placed to appeal the downgraded results. The whole thing is wrong and will have long term consequences for the students whose only 'crime' is that they happend to be born at a certain time. The government has a lot to answer for.

@RedToothBrush I never said it would be easy. Just pointing out the grades given don’t need to be accepted.

@merrymouse perhaps the children in question could have some responsibility in sorting it out? You know - the ones who are expected to go off to uni without their parents.

@merrymouse perhaps the children in question could have some responsibility in sorting it out? You know - the ones who are expected to go off to uni without their parents

Seriously

Thats your best answer to those questions

@Yellowbutterfly1

I’m absolutely disgusted that this has been allowed. If the mental heath of a lot of these children has not already been affected they sure as hell have destroyed it now.

I now wait for them to destroy my child when the GCSE results are given.

Sorry, picked this up from the early hours.

'Destroy my child'? (Lesser GCSE results next week). Really? Have you taught no resilience?

@merrymouse perhaps the children in question could have some responsibility in sorting it out? You know - the ones who are expected to go off to uni without their parents.

I can’t work out if your being facetious or genuinely don’t understand that there’s a population of young people who don’t have parental support for education. Who won’t have a parent pushing the school to appeal for them, won’t have a parent helping them negotiate with colleges and universities, won’t have anyone who can fund a year while they resit their exams.

Kids with parents who just aren’t that engaged in education, who don’t see the value, who think university education isn’t for “us”, kids in care who were relying on a uni place to give them some stability while they leave their care placement - who had to overcome huge odds just to be considered for uni. These kids often already carry significantly more responsibility than they should but let’s add a bit more.

Lesser GCSE results

Whats a lesser GCSE result

@HPFA

Devastating comments from Headteachers here. (You have to register to read but free and only takes a minute)

www.tes.com/news/i-have-never-seen-such-car-crash-set-results

Seems impossible that a school can have its worst results in eight years. Weren't the results supposed to be based on the last three years? And I'm sure many Heads made sure their submissions were in line with what was reasonable for their school.

My brother has said his local sixth form, Hills Road, Cambridge, received the lowest grades in its entire existence, or 48 years as it was established in 1972. The head is reported to be fuming.

My DD was downgraded, expected grades and CAGs were BBB, she got BCC.
DD has planned to take a year out but I'm worried as the universities are not going to be as lenient next year.
Feeling really bad for all these young people, what a shambles.

Destroy my child'? (Lesser GCSE results next week). Really? Have you taught no resilience?
Of course they are taught some resilience but it is fair to say that we place massive importance on educational achievement in the UK and it is crushing when the only thing they work towards fails. Most kids don't have anything else to fall back on. It's a very big deal.

If there has been approximately a 30% downgrade then that would suggest that the teacher predictions would have resulted in a cohort that did 30% better than any other year previously?
Despite all the individual issues surely at a cohort level this group of kids can't be 30% more able? That would be unheard of. It sounds like the metric used is not sensitive enough to cover the individual differences but that overall the grades are in line with what might be expected. If we just went with all the teacher predictions (clearly some were more careful than others) then it sounds like there was a danger the results would not have been taken seriously.

Can someone please explain to me why 40% grades were “down graded” but overall pass rate and a lot of other figures went up as well? Also, results are not significantly different to the last 3 years? Surely, that means teachers’ prediction were widely optimistic.

For the overall headline figures to be up (which they are) and 40% to have been downgraded (which is probably true) that means plenty of CAGs were unrealistically high but were not downgraded.

@GHGN

Can someone please explain to me why 40% grades were “down graded” but overall pass rate and a lot of other figures went up as well? Also, results are not significantly different to the last 3 years? Surely, that means teachers’ prediction were widely optimistic.

It's not clear from this thread, but some people got upgraded.

Overall the figures are up.

Every year there are people who don't get the results they want, but this year as there were no actual exams people are disappointed in a different way.