A’Level disasters 😔😣

[OverTheRainbow88]

Any other schools been majorly hit?

At my school we have a very mixed bag.

In my subject:
group 1 had two go down a grade, rest got CAG
group 2 had two go down and two go up a grade (!?)

In several other subjects the majority went down and in several others all got CAG.

All CAGs carefully checked and reviewed twice!

School here told the pupils, if they asked, what they had submitted for them. So they're not working on guesses here.

Same here

My daughter’s teachers told her what they’d submitted for her.

She was submitted B/B/distinction

Awarded E/E/merit

Her mocks taken in September for her A levels were B and C - regular exam condition tests taken since then showed an improvement to a good B

I don’t believe her teachers over inflated her grades - they were very clear how they worked out their submitted grades based on mocks, coursework and regular exam condition tests

I could understand being awarded Cs, but Es?

School are appealing her 2 A levels but she’s happy with the merit for the BTEC

She had an unconditional offer for her 1st choice uni doing the course she wanted which she has accepted and confirmed so she is happy but she is disappointed

@HipTightOnions

The term “downgrading” is misleading and emotive.

It assumes that the teachers’ predictions are somehow the “true” grade which has been arbitrarily changed by a heartless algorithm.

Teachers’ predictions are, for lots of good reasons, very optimistic. They would have resulted in a massive and unrealistic grade inflation this year.

This is very true. And not only optimistic but prone to bias. Teachers are not immune to this and there plenty of evidence of bias in education.

Without moderation, the grades wouldn’t be credible. I can’t say that I would look at a 2020 grade from Scotland and believe it. Totally over inflated.

My DS is happy. BD in mocks and awarded CC. So pretty fair on reflection.

I have sympathy with a lot of the challenges now being faced by students. It is impossible to know what is fair or not because we don't actually know how they would have done if they had sat the exams. In normal years only 16% of students get their predicted grades and some teachers will have been optimistic in both predictions and the grades they submitted to the CAG. But I know that doesn't help anyone and of course huge sympathies to everyone trying to find new university places.

In normal years only 16% of students get their predicted grades

That’s UCAS predicted grades though isn’t it?

To a previous poster who said it isn't a class war - I'm afraid the government has absolutely made it one. Whilst there will be some children who absolutely deserve their high marks or who don't deserve being marked down, the government's model does include reducing grades of those schools in lower-socio economic background more than those living in higher ones.

How upsetting for sixth formers downgraded.
My dd due results next week, so I am really worried now.

My DS just told me of a friend at school who was not A star material but decided he wanted to apply for Oxbridge. He therefore asked his teachers to give him good predictions which they duly did. They predicted A* AA (or thereabouts) and he was offered a place - a realistic assessment would have been more like BBB. Today he got his results and got ABC and apparently the college accepted him on the basis of his predictions. I'm not sure if thats entirely correct in detail but its the gist (DS gets arsey if I keep asking details!!).

However, I'm not sure that if its true that its done the student any favours. Oxford is very hard work and many excellently qualified students find it extremely taxing. This friend might really struggle to keep up if he doesn't bring his A game. So I'm not sure inflated grading really does anyone a favour. Just an anecdote - not trying to rub salt in any wounds.

DS got DDD, was recommended CCC by his school ( although he really thinks he could have achieved BCC) Just feels really unfair, he is realistic and knows he wasn’t an A student but DDD is a kick in the teeth. I don’t know how it can be rectified as surely everyone who had higher grades in mocks will want to appeal? Then will it just make the whole thing worthless?

PurpleDaisies - teachers submit predicted grades to UCAS.

I feel awful for young people "finishing" school this year. They have had such a raw deal out of lockdown in so many ways.

I agree with a PP who said this was so unfair on an individual level.

I remember when I was about to do my final exams I calculated how badly I'd have to do not to get my predicted grade, given how many marks I'd already "banked" in coursework. To get less than an A in my best subject I'd have had to get straight Ds on my final exams. If students with, say, straight As in prior exams and coursework are being downgraded by more than one grade that's basically assuming they'd have done really badly in their final exams which on an individual level makes no sense.

I can’t say that I would look at a 2020 grade from Scotland and believe it. Totally over inflated

Well maybe but if they then get a 2.1 degree would you still say that? I am surprised that when you are older and have years of work experience and degree(s) behind them that employers still want to know if you have GCSE Maths, but they do!

I don't think inflated A level or Higher grades mean that someone will do a course they weren't qualified for. Two people on my course got a 2.1, one had AAA at A level, one BBC. And if they do find it too hard they'll switch course, uni or direction. Hardly a big deal.

I think generally teachers over grade, to be honest, and certainly they will have almost sure to have done this time. I was disappointed with my own A level grades, which I felt I had worked hard for, but I obviously wasn't as good as I though I was - that was in the 60s.

Grades have been too high for years, in my opinion, since the comprehensive system overtook us, which points to a lot of the work being too easy. If your children had actually taken the exams, their grades may have been worse and they can retake later in the year to prove their real competence.

They would have started taking exams in early May so only missed a few actually teaching weeks, many of those would have been revision times. I wonder how many teenagers actually knuckled down in lockdown to continue full time home study. Not many, I would guess.

No employer has ever actually asked me for my grades in 45+ years of working! Mumsnetters have to be enraged about everything.

My ds along with many of his peers all got less than predicted results. Some got less than their mock results in October.
Absolute shambles. So best they can hope for now is to get their mock grades. Which writes off al the studying - coursework they had done from then until March.
The independent schools got more than double the a a* results than comps or grammars.

I’m sure some schools thought it worth a punt to predict all students overinflated grades, in that even if they were marked down, they would still get better than they would normally get.

If a school suddenly found that this year’s cohort were 25% brighter than that of any preceding year that is fishy.

teachers submit predicted grades to UCAS.

Yes, but those grades will not have been generated with the same level of rigour as these CAGs. Most teachers I know would bump up a borderline student who has some chance of achieving the higher grade for UCAS. That wasn’t what we did for these-it had to be the most accurate reflection of what grade they should be awarded based on all the evidence we had. Saying only 16% of teachers predict accurately when the grades predicted are done in different ways for different purposes isn’t really a valid comparison.

With regard to kids missing out on their uni place this year, while I fully understand that might feel devastating to them now, it might be for the best anyway to resit/appeal and apply for next year. Hopefully next year uni life will be much more ‘normal’ and fun. This year I can see a lot of the fun stuff being cancelled. Hasn’t at least one of the unis said they’re going to be fully online only for this next year? I wouldn’t want that personally. Much better for a young person to physically go to lectures and enjoy a social life too.

@SmileEachDay

Re the rank ordering and appeals - just saw this on Twitter....

I’m trying to find the document it’s from.

Yes I saw this too. What bastards - it's a way of pushing all the blame onto the teachers, who should never have had to undertake this invidious ranking process in the first place. Absolute arse bastards . It's also designed to put students off appealing - after all, they don't want to feel responsible for pulling down their classmates' grades, do they?

By predicted grades I mean grades based on her mock exam results and course work,etc, and not ucas ones.

Do kids know their CAGs as opposed to their UCAS predictions? Surely there will be less complaining if they find that Miss Bullface officially submitted them a B and not the A* they had on the university application?

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?

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

I think schools have don’t different things. We didn’t share them. I think we will now for the ones that will be appealing.

@IrmaFayLear they can now ask for their CAGs. The schools have to give the information to the students if they ask.