A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

I don’t know one child due to gcse or A level and that thought yipee no exams

They all wanted to prove themselves, .. Especially dd...she thrives on it....but also those who didnt do well in mocks and wanted to Do better

I did my exams 30 years ago (ish) and for the last 30 years mocks have been used to see how well a child is doing and give those children who aren’t doing well a kick up the bum without the grade affecting the rest of their education...except this year.

@24balloons

Just wanted to say. I’ve read a lot of messages saying Unis are desperate for students and are lowering offers. It’s definitely not the case in all Unis. I work for a Russell Group high ranked Uni and we’re not accepting any lower grades, unless an appeal is won & cant even open in Clearing due to exceeding our numbers.

Both my daughters have offers with massive reductions in grades from Russell Group unis. Required AAB she’s got on offer at BCC.

Ofqual are suggesting one successful appeal requires another to be downgraded

This isn’t true. I got sucked in by this yesterday, but Sky news had somewhat smooshed together two pieces of information from Ofqual and come up with nonsense.

Congrats to your daughters lovely

A silver lining for you...

Rufus my DS was thrilled that his exams disappeared into the ether and he could work on his gaming world records! His older DD was disgusted though that he didn't get to go through the stress and pressure she had.

a previously fairly staunch Tory who is starting to love Keir.
Eh? What has Keir said or done to the get solutions to this?

boul

😀 Bless him...theres always one (at least one)

Both ds1 and ds2 appreciate that dd does love an exam

They don’t understand it...but they support her

What infuriates me as a teacher is the assumption going around that we are incapable of determining a students grade, or we were just lying and inflating the grades, and that is why the grades had to be brought down.

I have colleagues who have been teaching for 20+ years. Every year we give a mock grade. Throughout all of year 12 and 13 we test them in class and give them grades. We mark essays based on a level mark schemes. Many teachers have spent years marking actual A levels each summer. If we were incapable of giving accurate results in those tests, we would see a drop from the mock to the actual exam every year. We have NEVER had a drop like this. Some classes will have kids, maybe 1 or 2 out of 15 kids in an A level class, who didnt do as well on the day as we expected. For my colleagues they are looking at 13 out of 15 having dropped grades. Have they just suddenly lost the ability to do their job? Have all their previous grading estimations over the past two years just been completely wrong? Did we just inflate the mock grades randomly in January (pre covid lockdown)? No. They are professionals who know what a grade B looks like.

We graded based on evidence. We graded based on our professional ability and the ability of students as shown over the past 2 years. Those results yesterday were based on algorithms. Who knows more about what a student can achieve; the person who has been marking their work for 2 years, or a computer who sees them as a figure on a spreadsheet?

I’m hoping that universities will see the problems and look at the candidates - if a teacher writes a personal reference won’t that help?

It looks like some teachers over-egged the scores (what did they have to lose?) and that possibly cause the huge downgrading right keep marks at ‘averaged out’ (so yes, the likes of Eton who got 75% AA*s and 93% A-B (2019 figures) won’t exactly need to inflate predictions will they?

@SerenityNowwwww we were told as teachers that if we inflated the grades we could be pulled up by inspectors to explain how we got those grades. So if I had a kid who only ever got a C, I couldn't give them a B or it would be my professional head on the chopping board. I had to give them a grade that was backed by evidence from their work over the past 2 years. I couldn't just make it up.

Feel very sorry for those who have lost uni places.

But unis will lower grades surely? They won’t have any international students and need bums on seats for this year.

It’s great that some have got in to uni on lower grades, and some have even got better uni courses, but there’s also a lot who have lost their places. A friends dd had places offered at 2 top universities, teacher assessed grades would have easily got them in both, but they were downgraded and both universities have removed their offers, not holding them for appeal. The news is full of students with the same story. I really hope Bath see the determination of Delilah who I’ve just seen on BBC News and reoffer her he place she’s lost.

[quote SqidgeBum]@SerenityNowwwww we were told as teachers that if we inflated the grades we could be pulled up by inspectors to explain how we got those grades. So if I had a kid who only ever got a C, I couldn't give them a B or it would be my professional head on the chopping board. I had to give them a grade that was backed by evidence from their work over the past 2 years. I couldn't just make it up.[/quote]
But how did the marks jump up 20% in some Scottish schools?

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

I don’t know one child due to gcse or A level and that thought yipee no exams

They all wanted to prove themselves, .. Especially dd...she thrives on it....but also those who didnt do well in mocks and wanted to Do better

I did my exams 30 years ago (ish) and for the last 30 years mocks have been used to see how well a child is doing and give those children who aren’t doing well a kick up the bum without the grade affecting the rest of their education...except this year.

Agree.

My ds was so disappointed not to do exams.

You know how much the school have done for him and his mocks were way above expected in some and slightly above predicted in others.

I give school full credit!

He may be lucky because it's a high achieving school. But even that's no consolation when the whole system has been undermined by the algorithm cock up.

@SerenityNowwwww I have it on good authority that Eton and several other big name independents in London are apoplectic.

The rise masks the fact that big subjects have been affected just like everyone else , the rises have been because of the smaller subjects that they offer being protected; Latin, Greek , Classics, Mandarin and also because some of their big subjects take the Pre U.

Apparently Eton have written to BJ and GW , maybe the threat of donors being affected will help where all else fails .

[quote SqidgeBum]@SerenityNowwwww we were told as teachers that if we inflated the grades we could be pulled up by inspectors to explain how we got those grades. So if I had a kid who only ever got a C, I couldn't give them a B or it would be my professional head on the chopping board. I had to give them a grade that was backed by evidence from their work over the past 2 years. I couldn't just make it up.[/quote]
Exactly.

And yet an algorithm then goes and assumes and grades students and makes it look precisely like that - a teacher made it up

@SqidgeBum

What infuriates me as a teacher is the assumption going around that we are incapable of determining a students grade, or we were just lying and inflating the grades, and that is why the grades had to be brought down.

I have colleagues who have been teaching for 20+ years. Every year we give a mock grade. Throughout all of year 12 and 13 we test them in class and give them grades. We mark essays based on a level mark schemes. Many teachers have spent years marking actual A levels each summer. If we were incapable of giving accurate results in those tests, we would see a drop from the mock to the actual exam every year. We have NEVER had a drop like this. Some classes will have kids, maybe 1 or 2 out of 15 kids in an A level class, who didnt do as well on the day as we expected. For my colleagues they are looking at 13 out of 15 having dropped grades. Have they just suddenly lost the ability to do their job? Have all their previous grading estimations over the past two years just been completely wrong? Did we just inflate the mock grades randomly in January (pre covid lockdown)? No. They are professionals who know what a grade B looks like.

We graded based on evidence. We graded based on our professional ability and the ability of students as shown over the past 2 years. Those results yesterday were based on algorithms. Who knows more about what a student can achieve; the person who has been marking their work for 2 years, or a computer who sees them as a figure on a spreadsheet?

40% over prediction shows that a lot, and I mean thousands of teachers, can’t do that accurately. Imperial College did a study about prediction before and only 1/6 of teachers’ predicted grades turned out to be correct with teachers at state school over-predicted more than one at indie. Make of what you want but I wouldn’t trust all of teachers’ assessments.

Out of interest what should they have done instead?

It was a no win situation either way for the government, it was a nightmare situation with COVID and I don't really see how else it could have been handled once they decided to cancel the examinations. I don't agree with what they did in Scotland, downgrading according to previous results of the school is completely unfair. But I think for the majority taking the mock grades and allowing chances for retakes and appeals seems the only way. Statistics have shown that in general teachers did over estimate grades so I think they would have had to do some downgrading. It's such a tricky situation but like I said I don't see what other options there were.

Also, I think because universities are worried that they won't fill places more places are likely to be offered and so those who may not have achieved the grades they wanted are likely to get a place anyway.

@SerenityNowwwww think about it , you have 4 pupils who are solid As in the class , you know statistically that’s one is likely to mess up in the day ; misread a question, panic, forget his watch , whatever. BUT you don’t know which one , so you grade all an A which is fair because they all are working at A grade level but inevitably will look like an inflation statistically.

You account for the rise because the actual truth is that if 100k students took an exam and all were securely getting B's then on the day a number of them won't. There will be extenuating circumstances nationally.

So this year grades were based on achievement that didn't account for that variable.

The issue is that the system could have no way of knowing who those students would be - but a computer has decided it based on what was achieved 3 years previously.

Say those 100k students are split equally over 100 schools.

Year 1 schools a b and c had the students who had illness etc and dropped grades.

Year 2 schools d e and f had those students.

Year 3 schools g h and I had those students.

This year statistically it's possible schools m, t and z would have those students.
But the computer decides schools a-I are to be adjusted because of previous years.

[quote Peaseblossom22]@SerenityNowwwww think about it , you have 4 pupils who are solid As in the class , you know statistically that’s one is likely to mess up in the day ; misread a question, panic, forget his watch , whatever. BUT you don’t know which one , so you grade all an A which is fair because they all are working at A grade level but inevitably will look like an inflation statistically.[/quote]
Yeah you explained it much better than waffle after!

My daughter was predicted A,B,C and got C,D,U.
Her lecturers said there's no fathomable way those results are fair based on her mocks / coursework / predicted grades / teacher assessments etc.
She was absolutely gutted upon opening her results yesterday.
Luckily Winchester have still confirmed her place even though she's fallen far short of what they said she needed so the lack of students this year has worked in her favour.

If the adjustments are heavily weighted to class size, then it's clear and obvious that this will favour those at independent and/or wealthier schools. That fact would also be well known to decision makers.

This would be disgraceful if it's the case.

There is precedent for this - historically, women were deliberately marked down in the UK 11+ to ensure that there weren't too many women. So never say never. These sorts of shenanigans have been known.

www.historyworkshop.org.uk/secondary-modern/

I work in uni admissions in a department. We just couldn't believe the grades we were seeing. We ask for a particular subject as an essential requirement and I would say that where we were seeing a drop it was by a good two grades.

And even in our own micro-sized sample there certainly seemed to be a discrepancy between areas that are considered 'advantaged' and those less so.

It's all just so wrong. We tried to be as flexible as we could with accepting. I'm just so sorry - we always try to remember that we're dealing with young people's futures here, and not just numbers on a screen.