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?

And that's the game many governments have set in place, nurtured and held against all education sectors!

But it can't be blatant, they even give you guidelines as to how to do it! Which better schools publish, for sake of transparency!

So that HT is only playing the game according to the rules...

... instead of using this as a strick with which to beat the teachers, look again at the education policies of successive governments - The Goviot didn't start it, he just gave it its biggest kicking!

I know Curious, we may well be bashing our heads against a brick wall but you know that teachers will just persist in explaining in different ways until understanding is reached!

Our 6th form has had s revolution since 2018. New HT, new head of 6th form. Huge culture change, best cohort for years.

Some of ours have gone down 2 grades, because previous years students scored lower grades. It seems so unfair.

One student is one of the brightest I've taught in some time (& I've taught s fair few Oxbridge students) and I'm positive he would have got an A*, everything pointed that way. Downgraded to an A because as a school we have not had top grade students few years.

How is that fair?

darkwader

You are adamant that teachers grades are wrong the system this years didn't even use teacher grades.

You are adamant that teachers are over estimating grades when there are no grade boundaries to set the grades too.

In short you are just looking to blame teachers for a situation that is outside of there control.

Even if op never gets it, I have found the posts from teachers on this thread reassuring and comforting. So for that reason, imo, your replies are valuable. Thank you, fellow teachers 👩‍🏫

You do know OP don't you that the people awarding grades this year haven't seen a single piece of work completed by a single student? Students I've heard of have had grades changed from C CAGs down to Us based on nothing but an algorithm. It's not because the school/teacher wrongly predicted a C. It's because this poor devil fell the wrong side of an algorithm.

I'll add too that this year none of the events that can alter a grade have happened. I might have five steady B grade students who I am confident about but who, in reality achieve a mixture of grades from A to D because of extra revision/effort they put in or events that happen in their lives, or even just a crap experience on the day. There is so much that can alter a grade when it mostly comes down to an exam. We have gone with the predictions this year where none of those variables are relevant and that is bound to affect the overall data.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

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'

On her first ever post and despite several people commenting on it she hasn't engaged at all with that point... I'm off, I've got a pile of work to do. The DM will have to get their 'article' material elsewhere...

I'm assuming you don't really have a small class (5 or below).
In MANY schools on minor subjects, classes of 5 or below is very common

not everywhere is like Peter Symonds with a statistically valid 600+ kids taking some subjects
www.psc.ac.uk/results-level/alevel

@KatieB55

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.

Hmm... good luck to them when ofsted deep dive...

GuyFawkesDay
Really sorry to hear that. So demoralising for students who have beaten the odds.
I may be in a similar situation for my GCSE students.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

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.

I think the issue here is not as I presumed (wrongly) that teachers cannot asses the grade - but instead that they do just choose to document the best possible grade. The model document says the same. It's a real shame that these grades were ever allowed outside of the communication to the exams board - as they are not predicted grades, but instead teacher estimates of the best that could be achieved - and the model fully takes this into account.

Students should never have been given any such indication of these grades - they were not what they should have been expecting to achieve via exams or via this process, which undoubtedly will revert to mean.

As the grades were not expected, but were best case predictions - nobody has been downgraded; the predictions were simply biased for all the reasons given and the model aims to remove that bias.

I was quite surprised that the model however is so much based on a straight historical change from GCSE grades - and an average at that. Someone who is an all rounder would have quite a different GCSE average to someone who is very specialist in for instance STEM; and yet I would assume you would't bother doing an A-Level such as Maths unless you can easily get an A at GCSE.

@darkwader

Its interesting that as a Director of Software Engineering you don't see the difference between having to work to a fixed specification and having to work to constantly moving variables.

I am wondering that given your posts (starting at midday) on results day (finishing at the end of an office day) if you are not some how responsible for this debacle and are looking for a way out.

@FrippEnos

That's not true.

People are suggesting that the teacher grades are the deserved grades - otherwise, why is anyone complaining.

However, the statistical models or national grades do not support these grades.

What I am complaining about is that if teachers cannot predict grades correctly, they shouldn't ever be telling students what grades they will achieve. If they are doing this, then the grades must be accurate predictions - otherwise, this is why students are disappointed.

Why is any student saying I expected A* and disappointed with a B unless teachers are predicting grades? This year, all those predicted grades have been shown to be hugely over estimated, but I also read they always have been (only 16% achieve their grades typically).

Teachers imo simply do not have the judgement needed to predict grades for students, so students should not have been given one - but then teachers come on here saying they do, so we go round in a circle - if they do, then there would not have been a 40% correction needed.

It is very good news that the predicted grades were not used - but then the only disappointment is because students for some reason had been told something wrong.

@FrippEnos

Not sure what that has to do with anything, but I know that if my directorate got anywhere near to this level of inaccuracy we'd be in trouble.

How we address this is to make sure we collect significant statistics and correct our predictions. So in developing sw features we use story points, and then measure how far the velocity takes us. Over a few months this means our predictions are extremely accurate in aggregate - to within 1-2%, including taking into account dynamic requirement changes - after all that's the point. Individual features can clearly have more variance, but if someone was consistently over or under estimating they would be retrained and maybe removed from that role unless improved.

It is exactly this what I'm surprised at, why year after year are teachers overestimating exams - as shown by UCAS estimates? After two years they should have moderated their own scoring to have a much better model of assessment so that their estimates are balanced.

What is being seen is consistently having a bias and a wide variance and not correcting for it.

As I've said above, I now understand this is just what is done - but then students shouldn't be told these grades in the context of what to expect.

@darkwader

The point is simple, you work to set standards as set by your customers.

You have parameters that are locked to the projects that you work to.

Teachers have no set parameters. It may seem like we do but the parameters move every year.

But you seem incapable of understanding this.

@FrippEnos

What I'm incapable of understanding is why if you cannot predict the grades for students (because of any reason, including moving parameters), teachers are informing students of grade predictions?

The only reason for disappointment today is because the wrong expectation has been set.

Either you can predict grades, which then need to be accurate (i.e. >75% of the time correct - or another stated higher %)- or you can't, which means they shouldn't be given.

Eh? We aren't specifically. the data of the specific CAGs belongs to the student , not us, so the school ahs tot el them their CAGs if they place a data access request.

The point is simple, you work to set standards as set by your customers.

What makes you think this - this is incredibly naive.

Are you deliberately talking in jargon to prove yourself better than us? Anything you can do...

I imagine your parameter velocity blah blahs aren't 17 year olds and aren't measured against an algorithm or standards you do not know when setting your targets.

It ahs been explained to you that the UCAS predictions are not the same as the CAGs. They are not done for the same purpose at all.

We have to give predicted grades for UCAS application purposes. Usually based on Yr12 performance and first bit of Yr13

The CAG were not the same. Those were often different, and based on the performance right up to March when we finished.

So last year I had a yr12 who was frankly, lazy. Clever enough, had a 7 on the subject at GCSE so capable.

Predicted grade: E. He got a huge kick up the arse and really knuckled down in Yr13. CAG was higher as his coursework and mock showed real improvement.

So predicted grades and CAG are often different.

Are you claiming every student that has an expected grade from a teacher has done so through a DSAR? And if so, explained that they should not expect to receive such a grade - as it is not for that purpose?

If so, no student should then be able to claim I was expecting an A and got a B.

In previous years, are you also indicating that when no CAG was required, no students received teacher predictions?

Really?

No, we didn't DO predictions for exam boards before. In the dark ages - when we did - we didn't share them with students.

Any student who wants their CAG has to ask the school.It's then their right to have it. They may have (possibly) guessed their CAGs before today (possibly based on mocks or NEA) but it was malpractice to tell them.

The predictions we share with students in normal times are not things which will result in an outcome : they are there to motivate, warn, cajole, or reinforce. They are also used by schools for tracking internally. And sometimes even by Ofsted.