A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

Stupid. Just so stupid. The only thing I hope will happen is that many international students from the ME and Far East choose not to apply or defer this year freeing up spaces and forcing some universities to be more flexible.

I think numbers for UK students were capped this year to stop the more highly rated universities from filling all the spaces they had from the loss of international students.

I really feel for those who were given grades well below what they were predicted or CAG’s submitted. The difference of 2 grades is potentially devastating for those with university offers which have now been rescinded. If that was my child I would be appealing!
My DD is in now going into Yr13 and she’s attends an international school (we don’t live in the UK). She is doing international A-levels and 3 out of 4 of her subjects she had to sit an A/S level this year. She got AAC grades in those. The A’s were well deserved as she consistently got A’s throughout the year in all set work and Mock exams. The C was perhaps deserved but she feels she would have done better had she sat a formal examination and been given more time prior to the mocks. The grade boundaries were really tough going also (Maths). She will resit these modules in October. Her exams were with 2 separate exam boards also, Cambridge and Pearsons Edexcell so I don’t think there were any hardships applied to individual exam boards.

I really feel for those who were given grades well below what they were predicted or CAG’s submitted. The difference of 2 grades is potentially devastating for those with university offers which have now been rescinded. If that was my child I would be appealing!

I think that you seriously overestimate what a parent has the power to do. Exam boards only communicate with the schools. Universities only communicate with the students.

Pupils were to be ranked based on overall performance. A single mock shouldn't have affected this.

This is absolutely right

Ranking systems for performance management are infamously inaccurate and also regularly suffer from institutional bias. I'd be interested to see a demographic breakdown of the downgrades.

Ranking systems used to form part of performance management for most ivy league companies. We spend sodding days trying to fairly rank the people in our practices and then defend them in roll ups. Its a right old game. This is because the bottom 5/10/15% were likely to leave in a "progress or leave" career model.

However even in companies using this method, typically someone would need to be "bottom end" twice to go due to the arbitrary nature of many of the comparisons.

Companies moved away from this method because its frankly bad and identifying genuine poor performance and legitimate comparison.

Asking people not used to doing this finegrained comparison is asking for trouble frankly. Its extremely difficult to do fairly without being blinded by "star moments" (like the mock result) or "star personalities".

Mind you even this doesn't explain results in a large school lower than any of their previous three year results.

The whole thing is fiasco and I'm sick of teachers being blamed for a government created mess. Williams for this nonsense with ofqual and Gove for getting rid of any moderated alternate inputs to the process.

haven't had any experience of a state secondary since I was in one myself but are small classes in less popular subjects not a thing in state 6th forms anymore? Obviously I get that they won't be in 6th form colleges but in schools?

Cost is prohibitive. Ten years of cuts have seen small class A levels largely abandoned by local schools because they can't afford to run them for a range of niche subjects.

They do pool with other local schools sometimes (its cheaper to fund transport to another local school to do Classics or Archeaology rather than pay for a teacher, if you can find one) but that is not a great experience for the kids who can end up with conflicts on timetables.

Hence the small cohorts are exclusively in the private schools around here.

Mind you, I suspect that the Heads of Eton and Harrow grumbling to Johnson and Co will have much more clout than two dozen Heads of ordinary comprehensives would

I agree and that is a big part of the problem with the system. A PP upthread described the head of maths at her top ten public school having access to the algorithm. If that is true its outrageous privilege but for once the crumbs of privilege might actually fall from the table to other children.

Cummings and Gove (because lets not pretend Boris is anything other than a clown prince) do rely on people forgetting. Lots of coverage about French quarantine announced just as the A level shit show hits the press.

This time though some of the main victims will be in their target demographic of aspirational WC/lower MC economic groups.

Yes, predominantly poorer areas have been downgraded. As a retired secondary teacher to University entrance level, I know that one would expect pupils to attain at least the same grade as in the mocks and usually a grade higher. There is no excuse for this chaos.

If this had affected my children I would be marching not just appealing!
I’m ready to join any organised march - something needs to be done!

To be fair to the government (through clenched teeth), I don't think they're necessarily suggesting that teachers inflated grades irresponsibly. It's more that, as has already been pointed out on this thread, teachers will rightly have predicted what each child would realistically achieve on a good day - but this doesn't take into account that lots of students wouldn't actually have had a good day. This leads to grade inflation and means that the results would then have been 'unfair' compared with other years. And this does matter. I've done a bit of recruitment in a couple of different organisations, and we did look at A level results, even when applicants had gone onto higher education. I don't know what the answer is though. Because even if you'd allowed school appeals before the results were released, if the schools could generally successfully argue that their CAGs were fair, then this would have resulted in the same grade inflation.

I've done a bit of recruitment in a couple of different organisations, and we did look at A level results, even when applicants had gone onto higher education

Thiis still happens in many of the 'premium' graduate job companies. You can end up with a first from Oxford but if you don't have the UCAS points you fail the initial automated filter.

@nankilslas

To be fair to the government (through clenched teeth), I don't think they're necessarily suggesting that teachers inflated grades irresponsibly. It's more that, as has already been pointed out on this thread, teachers will rightly have predicted what each child would realistically achieve on a good day - but this doesn't take into account that lots of students wouldn't actually have had a good day. This leads to grade inflation and means that the results would then have been 'unfair' compared with other years. And this does matter. I've done a bit of recruitment in a couple of different organisations, and we did look at A level results, even when applicants had gone onto higher education. I don't know what the answer is though. Because even if you'd allowed school appeals before the results were released, if the schools could generally successfully argue that their CAGs were fair, then this would have resulted in the same grade inflation.

Ok so granted not every student will have a good day, but on average, they would achieve at least their mock grade equivalent or the average of all their assessments over the 2 years. Dropping more than 2 or 3 grades is ridiculous and does not reflect the reality.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my students was achieving C's across all their assessments. I predicted them a D but the algorithm gave him a U. He would have easily achieved an E at least by just answering half the paper.

I don't think there's any question that the algorithm was shit. But just going with the CAGs would have been very problematic too. No idea what the answer is. Probably going ahead with the exams in the first place.

It all makes me think of "Minority Report", the Tom Cruise film where people were convicted of crimes before they were committed.

In theory Us should be very rare at A-level, because somebody who does not have the ability to get higher than a U should not be taking an A level in that subject - however, life happens so people get Us.

However, this year, to create results that are similar to previous years, the algorithm is having to assume the circumstances that would result in a U.

@nankilslas

To be fair to the government (through clenched teeth), I don't think they're necessarily suggesting that teachers inflated grades irresponsibly. It's more that, as has already been pointed out on this thread, teachers will rightly have predicted what each child would realistically achieve on a good day - but this doesn't take into account that lots of students wouldn't actually have had a good day. This leads to grade inflation and means that the results would then have been 'unfair' compared with other years. And this does matter. I've done a bit of recruitment in a couple of different organisations, and we did look at A level results, even when applicants had gone onto higher education. I don't know what the answer is though. Because even if you'd allowed school appeals before the results were released, if the schools could generally successfully argue that their CAGs were fair, then this would have resulted in the same grade inflation.

But this raises the question of why did they ask for CAGs in the first place when they don't actually feature in the standardisation process used? I don't believe that they were suddenly surprised to see schools had given grades based on best case scenario and thought "oh we need to come up with a new process now" They clearly knew all along that they were only going to use the rank order and the rest was a spin to make up think our children's predicted grades would be taken into account. They haven't adjusted or moderated CAGs to ensure there is no grade inflation. They have completely disregarded them and issued their own grade distribution based on their own flawed process and the rank order given by the school.

But this raises the question of why did they ask for CAGs in the first place when they don't actually feature in the standardisation process used? I don't believe that they were suddenly surprised to see schools had given grades based on best case scenario and thought "oh we need to come up with a new process now" They clearly knew all along that they were only going to use the rank order and the rest was a spin to make up think our children's predicted grades would be taken into account. They haven't adjusted or moderated CAGs to ensure there is no grade inflation. They have completely disregarded them and issued their own grade distribution based on their own flawed process and the rank order given by the school.

My DD's school actually told them it was based entirely on their rank last month. I'm not sure if this is because someone in the school had inside knowledge or just because they had guessed what would happen.

The algorithm

@nankilslas

I don't think there's any question that the algorithm was shit. But just going with the CAGs would have been very problematic too. No idea what the answer is. Probably going ahead with the exams in the first place.

Yes, considering they managed to open pubs last month you would think they could have managed to let schools run exams. I also wonder why they didn't publish the grades earlier and given the students the chance to appeal in time to get a university place this year.

I still stand by the fact that a company usually looks at more than A levels surely; assessments, competencies, interviews and experience are important. They're 17/18 for goodness sake. So even if they had inflated grades, but failed their interview or assessments, they're not gong to get the job and the company is not at a disadvantage. If they've applied for apprenticeships, they would have applied last year and showcased why they'd be suitable before any exams were sat. If they apply as graduates, then the mere fact they graduated means that there grades were reflective of their ability.

University students are tested throughout the course so there will be standardisation and natural wastage in that students that can do the course will buckle down and those that cannot, will transfer to something else as they have done many years previous to the pandemic.

This dumb government cannot just throw away statements saying that a 17/18 year old and their grades now will end up in them being in a job they cannot do when they graduate?? having proved that they could because they graduated??

Rich really coming from a cabinet where nobody is competent and qualified to do the job they've been voted in to do.
Pot kettle black.

@nankilslas

I don't think there's any question that the algorithm was shit. But just going with the CAGs would have been very problematic too. No idea what the answer is. Probably going ahead with the exams in the first place.

Something along the lines of, the algorithm should red flag anything above a certain percentage difference between its calculated grades and CAGs, and then go to the school and say "show us why we should use your grades?"

Then if the school can't back it up, revert to the algorithm grades. But at least give them the chance to say "this one pupil is exceptional amongst a crowd of mediocre/poor students - they do deserve that A and here is why" or "well, we've actually got a physics teacher teaching A level physics rather than a chemistry or biology teacher, so of course the grades have gone up, and here's the evidence"...

Stupid. Just so stupid. The only thing I hope will happen is that many international students from the ME and Far East choose not to apply or defer this year freeing up spaces and forcing some universities to be more flexible.

You're missing the point. Universities had quotas imposed for home students, precisely so that the top universities wouldn't take many more to counterbalance the international students not coming, and thus bankrupt the lower tariff universities.

Can the quotas not be lifted now, to allow CAGs to be used and hence more students in at least the first year

Rich really coming from a cabinet where nobody is competent and qualified to do the job they've been voted in to do.

Or in the case of Cummings, who nobody voted for.

Yes, predominantly poorer areas have been downgraded. As a retired secondary teacher to University entrance level, I know that one would expect pupils to attain at least the same grade as in the mocks and usually a grade higher. There is no excuse for this chaos

Yes, BUT - that is only because poorer areas tend to have larger numbers of students per subject. Any private or independent school with a cohort of more than 15 candidates has been subject to the same algorithm. Therefore the effect is greater in those poorer areas, but all students have been treated equally (badly).

Our Head is appealing Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, History, Maths, Physics, Psychology, RS.

But there aren't fewer international students this year, this has also been a red herring:

www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-releases/applicant-releases-2020/2020-cycle-applicant-figures-30-june-deadline

OK, applicants only, and they may not firm up, but applications are up, which is interesting and counter intuitive with everything going on in the world.