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?

Let's be honest, there are female students involved, some will have been distracted by their period on the day of certain exams, can you predict in advance which...

Some intelligent and focused students might have randomly fucked up reading the big question wrong, others might have got thrown by a blank on the first question - then you have random shit happening - probably 1 per school, but again, not predictable...

Cohorts can vary, they always have done to an extent. My cohort was about 200 league places above the norm for my school (selective indy) for both GCSEs and A-levels.

Exam predictions aren't like a race, they're more like finish time predictions for a marathon, so easy enough to group people around the pacer they should try to stick with (but last minute injuries can happen, wrong food night before) but predicting the winner is rather tougher!

The further maths A and maths C is clearly insane and proof that the algorithm did not work!

Just wait for GCSE day
the threads bashing teachers will be here by the dozen
to astroturf
Williamson's start of term attacks on teachers

Gove broke the system
Williamson is utterly incompetent

Covid showed up their weaknesses
not those of teachers
or pupils

[quote solidaritea]@titchy

Or the runner ran 360m normally, and the last 40m online?[/quote]
Teachers weren't asked to predict the last 40m being online. They had to predict as if the whole race was the same as a normal race. And they rightly predicted the leader they were familiar with would remain the leader. The algorithm predicted that of 1000 leaders in races predicted to be first, some will have fallen over.

The algorithm predicted that of 1000 leaders in races predicted to be first, some will have fallen over.

Guessed, not predicted.

@Etotheipiplus1equals0 interesting about AS data. My son has also received marks at least one mark lower than teacher assessment including one we thought was pretty much a dead cert. In one exam he received a U when he was predicted a D. Feels very harsh when they lost 3 months of teaching etc and didn’t get a chance to prove what they could do. I’m cross that teacher assessments appear to have been ignored.

@SoupDragon

The algorithm predicted that of 1000 leaders in races predicted to be first, some will have fallen over.

Guessed, not predicted.

No predicted. If 1000 races are run every year and have been for the last 50 years, and every single year 5 leaders always fall, it would be utterly beyond the realm of possibility that this year there weren't also 5 leaders that fell.

Problem of course is neither teachers nor algorithm can predict who. So it was five weakest that were targeted.

Neighbours daughter achieved A* in all of her mocks, one of her A-levels is Spanish, Spanish being her first language. She has been ‘awarded’ a C in Spanish.

Really Simon??? Absolute shoo-in for the school to challenge then

Unless they're private school teachers, who's students have strangely not been downgraded by anything like the same percentage as state students.

No surprise there!

@randomsabreuse

If you read the technical paper on the statistical model it is stated that yes for small subjects they have conceded the leniency - so the 'C' grade is robust against the school's distribution of history and value add, and they accept the 'A' grade in further maths would be too generous but represented the best estimate as insufficient statistical data was otherwise available.

It is ridiculous - but we shouldn't assume the 'A' grade is the correct prediction, the model design indicates the opposite and predicts this will happen. The paper discusses this, and indicates the only other alternative would be to disadvantage students.

Yes, except they haven't...my small class had 50 per cent downgraded. Despite the CAG s I put in being the same as last year, and last year was a weaker cohort. Riddle me that.

Just somethings for you to consider OP

Subjects with NEA allow the moderators/exam boards to mark down subjectively.

There are no grade boundaries, these are set after marking, so teachers this year are either using the boundaries from last year, or something that they have had to make up.

Teachers marks (CAGs) have been ignored and pupil order effectively put into an algorithm.

Ever when there where published grade boundaries exam boards published two marks for the subject, raw and UMS.

Raw is the actual mark that the pupil received.

UMS was the mark that was awarded after the boards had messed around with them.

The difference between UMS and raw could be up to 12%, a low A (or 9) could end up being a High C (or 5)

With the boundaries as they are a 12% drop in marks after being put through the Boards calculations could be 4 grades.

Remember that the various governments have been trying to down grade pupils for years. This is just another part of it.

Also with NEA a lot of pupils will start working hard towards to end of the time and for exams a lot of pupils will crumple at the last moment.

Just another thought.

Last year I had 20 pupils, most of which didn't want to take the subject and where backed by their parents to not do the work or catch ups.

This year I have 60 pupils, much more focused, they actually want to do the subject and are a better group/s.

Why should they suffer due to last years pupils?

since then the standard was set rather than measuring relative to other student

This assumption, OP is false. There are no set standards. Grade boundaries are set to maintain comparative outcomes with previous years. With minor tweaks, the same proportion of kids pass each year regardless.

The newspaper articles proclaiming that there are more A*\A grades this year are bizarre as that figure has been decided by Ofqual and nothing to do with the kids.

@Piggywaspushed

The model definition for completely using CAG's is a size of 5, between 5 and 15 a blend between the two is used to avoid discontinuity.

I'm assuming you don't really have a small class (5 or below).

I may have misinterpreted it, if you do indeed have a small class based on the definition given - it's on pages 101-110.

Teachers are not prophets. We can say what is likely, but we can’t predict the future. Target grades are a national formula based on SATS or GCSEs, and not realistic in many cases. Teachers can’t over rule the target grade for a predicted grade. It can normally only be one grade away. You don’t understand what predicted grades are. They are guesstimates within narrow confines

It was me who gave you the link. There were 8 students, 8 students last year (grades identical to this year's suggested CAGs with lower prior attainment) and no class at all in 2018.

There really was no sign at all that the CAGs meant anything.

But we could try the German class , if you prefer . German was supposed to have an uplift this year. Class of 5. Adjustments made, including an A to a C.

I did read it wrong, it's less than 5, so 4 for a small class threshold.

@FrippEnos

They shouldn't suffer - and haven't. They have been awarded a grade by completing a course, but not taking the examination - very generous system. But there isn't any evidence that they are better or worse by the sounds of it.

It's not that relevant though, this thread is about why the grades predicted are way out of normal and whether we should ever be able to rely on teacher based predictions - not whether the statistical model can take the place of exams for a class. I understand 75% are overestimated every year for uni - but one pp has indicated they provide 'best day' estimations in these cases rather than true estimations (most likely in all the circumstances).

It was me who gave you the link. Now, now Piggy Don't get hung up on facts!

OP, you've suddenly started talking in acronyms and situation specific verbiage!

Set me a wonderin'

Problem is with the algorithms they have used and a class of 6+ too much emphasis has been put on prior centre performance. Six students is a miniscule statistical sample.

Reposted from another thread;

Grades don’t describe anything. There is no way of accurately saying ‘this kid is working a grade 4 and this one is working at a grade 5’ because which kid gets a grade 4 and which gets a grade 5 is decided by their ranked position nationally. We set grade boundaries on a bell curve that is decided after the exams are sat, according not to the standards met by each child, but by how the cohort performed on the exam, and to ensure that the same proportion of kids pass each year.

We use mocks based on past papers, especially at GCSE using grade boundaries that applied to the previous cohort to get an idea, and also gut feeling and experience from having taught the kid and having taught other kids like them.

But there is no right answer that teachers have somehow ‘got wrong’. Teachers can’t possibly grade kids according to a national picture that they are unaware of.

this thread is about why the grades predicted are way out of normal and whether we should ever be able to rely on teacher based predictions But they are not... and many have exhausted themselves explaining the mechanism predicted grades are constructed within and are then remodelled.

We get it, we know its weaknesses and the frustrations of it. But it is not as simple as saying the teachers got it wrong. The system is set up to 'correct' all individual responses to bring them wthin a national tolerance - as set by government, nothing to do with stochastics, more to do with political ideology!

Teachers can’t possibly grade kids according to a national picture that they are unaware of. S'OK giraffe we tried to explain raw and UMS marks and ever changing grade boundaries upthread. They were ignored, deemed inconsequential, it seems! But we plod on, trying to re-word the concept, see what might get through, even though we know we can't - mainly cos we are teachers, can't help ourselves. Even in the face of a possible/probable wind up merchant

A teacher friend told me that their head had told them to submit higher grades - she said all to do with league tables & school previously in special measures.