AIBU that we must accept many teachers do not have the appropriate professional judgment regarding what students need to achieve for A-Levels?

[darkwader]

There is no reason to suggest that nationally this year’s students are different significantly to previous years – certainly not as demonstrated by GCSE results.

Unclear why, but exam boards have been generous in this years results in all categories, showing higher results than last year, but needing to downgrade almost 40% of teacher assessed grade to remotely be a normal year.

Despite what teachers are claiming, it must be the case that 40% of grades were inflated by teachers – even if the individual students who had these inflated grades are hard to determine. The number of A/A*’s would not jump by 10%.

If every teacher had correctly provided grades, then the national mix would match previous years and no downgrading would have occurred. – so although maybe not the teacher who is specifically involved with a set of students; overall teachers are responsible for the disappointment because of poor grade assessment in the first place in aggregate.

Given that teachers have been predicting grades for university entrance for years and marking coursework in some cases – this shows the unfairness of such a system, as they are incapable of doing so to any degree of accuracy or potentially without bias towards those they know.

Students across this country are now being affected by this incompetence – even if not the students own teacher, the professional standards are to blame.

AIBU to now understand that this professional judgment does not exists for many, many teachers and they need to be evaluated each year before being allowed to be involved in marking and grading?

If AIBU - what am I missing?

Well it's clearly utterly stupid to downgrade based on previous student performance at that school. They are basically saying that teachers at schools in poor areas are more likely to lie. There's no justification for that and it can't be allowed to stand. I don't see a problem with 40 per cent more A's for a one off year anyway. It's not going to make any real difference to a student's future to get AAB instead of BBB. It's not as if people who can't read are suddenly getting a level English. Claims of this devaluing the exam system are rubbish. .

Is it going to be the same algorithm for GCSEs?

Yup

Can’t wait.

Claims of this devaluing the exam system are rubbish.

They aren't rubbish. Allowing huge inflation isn't good for anyone in the long or short term. However most of the issues this year could have been sorted out by a decent (not rushed) appeals process.

It's not going to make any real difference to a student's future to get AAB instead of BBB

Conversely why does it matter if they get BBB instead of AAB if it doesn't make that much difference.

(devil's advocate!)

@Hercwasonaroll

How are they spread within each grade, and does it really matter?

It is only per notional grade, so if a B is 60-70 and 100 students, they spread 100 students within 60-70 evenly. It doesn't impact that only 20 students may get a C.

I guess it makes the curve piecewise linear, but that's not a bad approximation to a reasonably smooth curve with 7 linear segments.

@Hercwasonaroll

Claims of this devaluing the exam system are rubbish.

They aren't rubbish. Allowing huge inflation isn't good for anyone in the long or short term. However most of the issues this year could have been sorted out by a decent (not rushed) appeals process.

It's not going to make any real difference to a student's future to get AAB instead of BBB

Conversely why does it matter if they get BBB instead of AAB if it doesn't make that much difference.

(devil's advocate!)

I assume because BBB instead of AAB would mean they won’t get into their top uni. And in fact if they have been downgraded significantly, might not even get into their insurance choice. Most Russel Group unis for top subjects and especially STEM require AAB at least, more likely A’s and A*s. Not getting a place at either your first choice uni or your insurance uni means you can’t go to uni this year. And only certain subjects are available in clearing. And if this happens, you’re likely to get the dregs of university accommodation. For the brightest students, there is a reason they pick a university in the top 10 ranking instead of a lower ranked one There can be a big disparity between education received, networking opportunities, future job prospects etc. this is especially noticeable for professional degree courses such as doctors, scientists, lawyers, nurses, vets, architects, engineers etc.. Academically bright students going for STEM degrees in particular benefit from attending top universities due to the high quality in scientific research those universities undertake and the high credentials of the professors (many of them will be world experts in their field, Nobel prize winners etc.)

Ordinarily in a cohort of 100 say, grade C was 50-60 marks you could get 100 with a mark of 50, or 99 with a mark of 59 and one student on 51. When these are ranked nationally it is fair.

Evenly spread within a grade maintains rank order but doesn't mean cross centre ranking is accurate.

I assume because BBB instead of AAB would mean they won’t get into their top uni

I know this. But being insistent that grade alterations doesn't matter works both ways.

twitter.com/Samfr/status/1294032966293827585?s=19

The system is incredibly stupid, although it is hard to think of a good one.

It is a classic games theory problem. Say you are a fair but cynical head of science and you would like to grade fairly. You might suspect the ‘optimistic’ head of maths might over grade by a grade per pupil. Now, you have no idea how the algorithm works and suspect that, if your colleagues overgrade, the whole school might be knocked back a grade in the benchmarking process. This would lead to your pupils being undergraded by a grade. So, what do you do? You raise your own predicted grades etc.

I suspect the same thing went on at school level where heads felt that if they predicted fairly and other schools over predicted, they would lose out.

I think, notwithstanding this, most tried to be optimistically fair.

twitter.com/xtophercook/status/1293841154782441474?s=19

YABU. Exams aren’t the best way to show what a student are capable of doing. Teachers working closely with students know them best so this is why cags were higher and then downgraded by a computer algorithm that doesn’t see what teachers do.

That tweet explains it well Herc.

twitter.com/a_weatherall/status/1294012623776817158?s=21

This also explains some of the grade decisions clearly.

Not sure what they're is to wonder about. I read what people said, and then read the model ofqual have published today - it's the terminology they use - that's all. That's what I meant. Yet another Instant Expert.

As your later posts show, you still are not listening and are suggesting that you have idea that would work when you don't understad the framework upon which you would be plastering it. Just like The Goviot did.

The great difference is The Goviot actually had the power to shove his idiocy through. You thankfully, just get to wast a lot of time on an internete forum!

@HipTightOnions

Well yes because you had to. Yesterday I asked if this could be done through some unconscious bias and you said no.

You asked whether we would be biased in favour of students who would be more disappointed by lower grades and I said no.

We used a ton of data - including mocks - to derive the ranking. It wasn’t gut feel.

I get that.

But if say 5 students have done 10 module assessments over the years I'm asking how you decided who was top and who was bottom?

Was it judgement?

Did you add up how many marks each pupil got per module and divide by 10 and rank them in risked determined in how many points they got?

Did you take the last 3 assessments and rank them in order?

Did all schools do it the same?

I absolutely - as I've said before - trust teachers were confident in their judgements.

But the issue is that added to the algorithm it meant that your lowest student in you B grade (for example) may have also got a B in every assessment along side all your other ranked B's. but because the last 5 years only 5 students got a B - no 5 gets a C.
Then it's possible your 2 lowest Cs get Ds and so on.

There is situations where previous years there's been 10 students. 9 have got all A-C and 1 for an E. an outlier. This year all students were predicted A-C. The bottom student got an E - not based on anything other on what another student achieved.

I totally agree it's concerning how much the results may have been above the norm.
But it's also concerning many students futures have been destroyed by an algorithm that doesn't allow for any changes to previous performance.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I do know there are plenty of results that do need looking at.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I do know there are plenty of results that do need looking at

I know that the appeals process should have been thought through prior to the eleventh hour. And that it should be free so that it doesn’t further disadvantage anyone.

Perhaps the grades could have been given to schools prior to release, so that pre appeals from schools could have ironed out “outliers”?

It’s an utter shitshow. And GCSEs will be worse if nothing changes between now and next week.

@SmileEachDay I actually think GCSEs will be better. Bigger cohorts mean that unless your school is single form entry at y11 (unlikely) then most results should be OK. Maths and English results should be fine. Even smaller entry subjects tend to have at least 25 students in state schools. There may be some disappointments at borderlines but there won't be the issues like we've seen with A levels. The schools that will be heavily penalised are rapidly improving ones unfortunately. However they can appeal at school level.

I agree the appeal process should be free.

The schools that will be heavily penalised are rapidly improving ones unfortunately

That would be my school. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Our rapid improvement was heavily praised by ofsted last year. The irony!

@Hercwasonaroll

But won't that mean that almost all students are given grades based entirely on the algorithm distributing them according to the ranking and in line with past performance? There'll be very little individualised grading meaning that it's irrelevant at what actual grade that student was working at. The only thing that will be relevant will be where they sit within their cohort. You could end up, again, with weaker students in a stronger cohort being given lower grades than they deserve simply because they are towards the bottom of the distribution.

It will, BUT in cohorts of 100+ the grade distribution doesn't vary much year on year. Obviously options subjects may be smaller than this however they do tend to be at least 25 and lots of ours run 2 classes. By the time you have 50 students each student is 2% rather than a class of 8 where each student is 12.5%.

The A level "anomalies" have mainly come from small groups of 6-15.

Smile at least you have one year of improvement and evidence from ofsted for an appeal.

Smile at least you have one year of improvement and evidence from ofsted for an appeal

Yep - and my department has been stronger for longer than that.

It’s just a bloody nightmare- ordinarily results day is a joy. There are always some disappointments, but in general the kids get what they deserve. I love being part of their journey.

This year it’s just not like that.

mobile.twitter.com/A_Weatherall/status/1294012623776817158

This explains it very well and shows where teachers had to - at times - or the computer decided at times - students were over marked.

Nothing to do with realistic predictions. It was to do with fitting this years cohort into a previous distribution.

So, I have 25 in my GCSE class.

Last years results (22 in class) were all 9 -4 with one 2. Lots of 8s and 7s in particular.

But now I am really worried as those were high prior attainers. The two lower prior attainers last year got a 2 and a 3 (an there was another who may have got a 4 or 5). I am no worried all my prior lower attainers in he 2020 group will 'have' to be given 2s and 3s! And I definitely gave one a CAG of 5. The 9 I have awarded does not have the same level of PA as last year's 9.

I know I am not explaining this well but I just don't see how the algorithm can work with two groups of similar size but with astonishingly different prior attainment figures.