If they f***ING delay the GCSE results I will not be accountable for my actions

[ScrapThatThen]

They need to sort it out before Thursday or allow centre assessed grades.

I work in children's mental health. Stop heaping unfairness on unfairness and uncertainty on uncertainty. Give them 2 weeks notice of where their life goes next fgs.

The government were happy to remove comparability and level playing field 2 years ago when they changed from grade ABCD etc to grades 987654 etc for GCSEs.
This would be no different. Especially if the trends in 2020 continued in subsequent years so after 2020 everything is comparable.

It amuses me how people are outraged that some students may get better grades due to relying on teacher assessment, but not outraged when year on year those students get worse grades due to a shitty system which perpetuates inequality whilst pretending to be meritocratic.

@neutralintelligence

And that increase is not due to 'inflation' of grades but because no-one can pinpoint which pupil would have underperformed.

If someone gave you a list of your local school's predicted grades and ranking order. How would decide who has their grade lowered by a grade? Would you automatically take the lowest ranked pupil in each grade? What is that pupil had a really good exam and would actually have got a grade higher? What is the top ranked pupil didn't turn over the last page?
It is only fair just to accept the 9% overall increase and accept that means each individual pupil gets the fairest most accurate grade.

As I remember posting on here and other fora at the time months ago, the use of forecast grades and rankings was a disaster waiting to happen. Teachers & schools should have given a mark, not a grade, so that the usual method of standardisation by Ofqual could have been used. It was clearly going to cause problems when a school had to rank their pupils within each grade, as it's quite likely that the lowest ranked A pupil in one school could be better than a mid ranked A pupil in a different school, so that leads to the lowest ranked pupils in the former getting a B whilst a weaker but higher ranked pupil in the latter gets their A. Entirely foreseeable!

They should have just gone with CAGS to start with. Yes, there probably would have been grade inflation, but so what. If it was across the board

It wasn’t across the board. Schools were inconsistent - that’s the whole problem.

Rankings should not be used for downgrading.
Ranking can in no way predict exam performance. Factors that influence exam performance: mainly the amount of revision done (clever kids in some cases often underperform due to lack of revision), home situations, friendship/social situations, health and illness, etc

Article from July

Interesting, eh?

@neutralintelligence

The government were happy to remove comparability and level playing field 2 years ago when they changed from grade ABCD etc to grades 987654 etc for GCSEs. This would be no different. Especially if the trends in 2020 continued in subsequent years so after 2020 everything is comparable.

So you want higher numbers of people getting A and A grades at A level for years to come? How does that enable differentiation of the most able pupils? The whole point of the change to the 9-1 grading system was to split up the numbers of people getting the top grade as there were too many! All the inevitable result of decades of grade inflation. Something has clearly gone wrong when you can have a A grade boundary as wide as 30%, i.e. in some subjects everyone gaining over 70% gets A*.

How can you inflate grades when you don't know the grade boundaries?

These move every year. (and sometimes after the results have been released)
Some schools will have used last years boundaries, some will have used the adjusted sets.

By not publishing boundaries for each subject the government can claim that grades are being inflated for many reasons but they are still the root cause of the problem.

and that is before the issues other teachers have stated above.

Teachers & schools should have given a mark, not a grade, so that the usual method of standardisation by Ofqual could have been used.

No - marks would not be consistent between schools. How could they be standardised?

it's quite likely that the lowest ranked A pupil in one school could be better than a mid ranked A pupil in a different school, so that leads to the lowest ranked pupils in the former getting a B whilst a weaker but higher ranked pupil in the latter gets their A.

No, that’s precisely what the moderation process was designed to avoid.

Moderation is based on exam results - hard cold evidence.
You can't moderate something that doesn't exist.

Rankings should not be used for downgrading.
Ranking can in no way predict exam performance. Factors that influence exam performance: mainly the amount of revision done (clever kids in some cases often underperform due to lack of revision), home situations, friendship/social situations, health and illness, etc

Rankings are the teachers’ relative measure of students’ performance, when they are forced to differentiate. The factors you mention above could have been modelled with a random number generator. Perhaps the ranking was ultimately fairer?

So are they looking into changing it for A level students now? I heard last night that theyd put a stop on the appeals process. We are Wales, so different, different exam boards etc, but hoping if England goes back to teacher assessments, Wales might follow.

@neutralintelligence

Rankings should not be used for downgrading. Ranking can in no way predict exam performance. Factors that influence exam performance: mainly the amount of revision done (clever kids in some cases often underperform due to lack of revision), home situations, friendship/social situations, health and illness, etc

Fully agree that rankings should never have happened.

On thinking about it, perhaps schools should have given "quotas" by Ofsted, based on the prior attainment at that school, SATs etc - i.e. the same criteria they ended up using in their algorithm. If schools thought their quotas were wrong, they could have appealed back in March/April. Otherwise, they would fill their quota as best they could given their knowledge of their pupils. I.e. if school A usually averages 5A*s in Maths, then the Maths teachers decide between them which 5 of their students were most likely to achieve, by means of considering mocks, coursework, tests, prior year end tests, etc etc. Follow the same logic down through the other grades. Basically, tasking the schools/teachers with deciding which pupils were most likely to fit into their quota of grades etc.

Ds is at breaking point about his results, delaying results day would just about finish him off. He is autistic & has been having meltdowns & not sleeping for the last couple of weeks, I don't know how he will handle not getting his results on Thursday. It is disgusting the way pupils have just been cast off, they haven't had any proper schooling since March, missed the exams they have spent years working towards, no leaving parties or proms, then all the uncertainty about their grades on top of it. This is beyond cruel, if parents were treating their children like this it would be labelled as abuse but because it is the government we are all supposed to just accept it.

Daughter isn’t sleeping with the stress of it all. She is an exceptional student, but a big worrier.
It is so difficult. If there is a large hike in grade levels this year, then this cohort will not have their grades taken seriously, if they use the algorithm, then so many individuals will not get the grades they might have done.

I think a 2 week delay would be better than a repeat of this A’Level shit show!

Basically, tasking the schools/teachers with deciding which pupils were most likely to fit into their quota of grades etc.

This is, in effect, what my school tried to do.

Nat6999
I really sympathise. They are having a horrible time. My dd has auto immune health issues and it isn’t clear how this might affect Covid. I also have auto immune issues, so we have all been extremely careful as a family, and dd has only seen two friends since lockdown, separately, and outside with social distancing. So tough.

I really don't believe that if we go with CAGs year groups coming before or after 2020 will be at a disadvantage. 2020 will always be looked on as an anomaly. If anything, institutions and employers might look on their results with scepticism. Anyway, once you've done your A Levels or equivalent, nobody's that bothered by your GCSEs and once you've done your degree, nobody's that bothered by your A Levels. There is no ideal solution, but I think CAGs would have been the least worst.

HipTightOnions

So did many schools. This will have been obvious from the data. In JULY. At that point Ofqual should have confirmed the results for those schools and challenged centres that clearly hadn’t.

@Macguffin69

I really don't believe that if we go with CAGs year groups coming before or after 2020 will be at a disadvantage. 2020 will always be looked on as an anomaly. If anything, institutions and employers might look on their results with scepticism. Anyway, once you've done your A Levels or equivalent, nobody's that bothered by your GCSEs and once you've done your degree, nobody's that bothered by your A Levels. There is no ideal solution, but I think CAGs would have been the least worst.

In a few years' time employers etc will have forgotten about 2020. Their automated/computerised job application systems (more common than ever and spreading fast) won't be programmed to adjust for the 2020 cohort. Same with mature people applying for uni, career changes, etc - if the 2020 results are too high, they'll be advantaged over others, if too low, they'll be disadvantaged. We already have this with older people who got their O and A levels a few decades ago when B/C/D grades were the normal and highly respected but those people now miss out on opportunities because "computer says no" when younger people get higher grades due to grade inflation over the decades.

Agree completely SmileEachDay.

If results are to be based on Teacher Assessment, or whatever the current name is, will parents still want to appeal if their little angel's grades are not what they wanted them to be?

I really don't believe that if we go with CAGs year groups coming before or after 2020 will be at a disadvantage.

If we go with CAGs many students this year will be at a disadvantage!

@mrsBtheparker - yes, every year there are appeals no matter what. I may appeal if my DC CAG is less than his mock. But that may be only 1 or 2 subjects. If all his grades are downgraded by 1 grade, I will be submitting 9 appeals.