Won't children sitting public exams next year be terribly disadvantaged?

[stressed2021]

I know there are a lot of similar threads going around, but none seem to address this issue? With the Government u-turning on grades given this year, won't this massively affect those sitting next year, as my DD in year 12 as the grades they achieve will be de-valued due to grade inflation? Surely, the cap on English unis should have been lifted this year and people who were unhappy with grades should sit them in the Autumn.

If universities have to give 2021 places to this years students because they don’t have space for all those who now meet offers it will have a big impact on students doing exams in 2021 as there will be less places available.

Maybe this just exposes that we place far too much significance on arbitrary grading systems.

Why is it desirable to have a system where an eighteen year old's future can be ruined because they don't thrive in exam situations or they messed up one exam paper?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/897137/Consultation_on_proposed_changes_to_the_assessment_of_GCSEs__AS_and_A_levels_in_2021_020620.pdf

Sorry these are the changes that will happen next year for the exams.

I know that it says proposal but this was passed after a consultation.

yeah, dunno. with all these zillions of great grades doing the rounds, the main options are:

(a) permit/force the top universities to accept much higher numbers of students than they'd have anticipated, presumably letting a couple of the lowest ranked institutions go bust in the process; or

(b) encourage deferral of places, presumably placing 2021 students at a huge disadvantage relative to 2020 sitters.

really it's a terrible clusterfuck, exams are by far the least bad way we have of carrying out assessments, with hindsight year 13 kids should have carried on attending school, by whatever means, no matter what.

@rattusrattus20 - exams are by far the least bad way we have of carrying out assessments, with hindsight year 13 kids should have carried on attending school, by whatever means, no matter what.

I agree, what a mess. They should have had Y10,12 and13 still studying / do exams ( could have been done after May) instead we have this mess and lots of Y10 and 12 have had minimal teaching provision in many cases, which will have a knock on effect to next years exams. And Y13s who some will have not picked up a book since March starting uni so they will struggle too.

Of course they'll be disadvantaged - my kids are very young, so it doesn't directly affect us, but I feel really sorry for kids doing gcse and a levels. What a clusterfuck.

I should have added, given the situation we have and what’s happened there has been no choice really re grades using CAG / teacher assessments as the fairest way to resolve the problem this year. Given the number of appeals there is no way they could have all be addressed.

I have a son in year 12 going into year 13 , my greatest worry is the six months of school he has missed . Yes he has had work to do at home and some video teacher interaction but this is no substitute for the real thing . I am hoping that some announcement will be made as to how this cohort will be handled in terms of cutting part of the syllabus or scaling down the exams to allow for the great gaps in teaching parts of the course contents . My son and his friends are worried and stressed over this , they are also fearful of future lock downs and more missed school . Yes we all feel for those currently collecting GCSE / ALevel results , but planning and preparation needs to be put in place quickly for the thousands of other secondary school age children who will have huge gaps in their learning , I can't see how they will be able to " catch up " without a monumental effort from pupils and teachers . This may be achievable in some cases but not for all making the future very unfair for a huge number .

cologne4711
Yes, I was being heavy on the sarcasm. I’ve got a Y11 who was very likely to have been at a huge disadvantage under the algorithm, but now, trusting her teachers as we always have, feel she’s going to be fine. But I also have a Y12 who has had 12 hours (four lots of three hours) face to face teacher time since March but will be doing a completely unchanged A Level 🤷‍♀️. So I’m unsure if we’re glass half full or half empty atm tbh.

The grades in 2020 have essentially been made up and don’t reflect students work, they do not stand up to year on year standardisation.Everyone has been disadvantaged in this debacle. But, I mean this with sincerity although it sounds sarcastic - what does it matter? Let them have the grades from their teachers.

At least then the teachers ‘professionalism’ is honoured and their feelings are slighted. Plus I like to believe that the ones who have worked will be get marks on merit associated to consistent work over time.

If you were to look at the data from past exams I would put money on BAME and poorer postcodes having lower outcomes. The algorithm used the previous data it didn’t create the inequality- for a brief moment though the educational disadvantage was displayed and it caused outrage. It’s all been swept away in a wave of ‘everyone’s happy now because they got what they want’, look the other way from the real tragedy, nothing to see here.

I have no kids of uni age, but I think if the kids want proper qualifications then they'd have to sit exams at some point. Otherwise it should be labelled as covid predicted A or whatever grade they were predicted. They didn't earn a qualification so shouldn't get one. However, universities and workplaces should be flexible and allow for the situation. Its not fair on other years if this years students get inflated results for not doing the same work and it's not fair on companies that employ these people on the basis that they got an A when they didn't. It should be clear to an employer that the result isn't an actual qualification but a predicted one. Not hugely fair on this years students but they do have the option of sitting the exam at a later point and decide if they want to keep a predicted result or actual qualification. Its a farce at the moment.

I agree OP - current Y12s will be disadvantaged because there will be fewer places available at good universities in October 2021. The U turn means over subscribed universities (the good ones) will have to defer lots of 2020 students to next year.
So there will be fewer offers to next year’s Y13s and they will be higher.

There's also the unfairness that some schools did full online timetables with interactive lessons, some schools did recorded lessons, some did email interaction and some provided independent work only. Some schools marked and assessed and others didn't. And of course, within individual schools some were able to fully engage with what the school was offering and some were not.

Yet they will all take the same exam at the same time.

@sarahC40

No they are not teacher estimates; they are centre assessed grades and the teacher grades were just the starting point for the deliberations My school employed Fft aspire, who provide educational data analysis for the whole country to look at our cags across the curriculum and with historic data.

Did every school use an external organisation to ensure the teacher assessments were sound? I wouldn't think they would have.

Why is it that so many exam results do not coincide with teacher assessments? Because they naturally want to be positive and therefore, overestimate a student's abilities. If that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be exams in the first place.

The whole situation is a farce and now we will have even more students going to university who frankly shouldn't be there. But if they want to rack up a mountains of student debt to have the university experience and then end up in a job where they didn't need a degree to get it, then so be it.

However, judging by demonstrations and utter lack of social distancing, not many of them have much common sense anyway.

@Sparklybanana

I have no kids of uni age, but I think if the kids want proper qualifications then they'd have to sit exams at some point. Otherwise it should be labelled as covid predicted A or whatever grade they were predicted. They didn't earn a qualification so shouldn't get one. However, universities and workplaces should be flexible and allow for the situation. Its not fair on other years if this years students get inflated results for not doing the same work and it's not fair on companies that employ these people on the basis that they got an A when they didn't. It should be clear to an employer that the result isn't an actual qualification but a predicted one. Not hugely fair on this years students but they do have the option of sitting the exam at a later point and decide if they want to keep a predicted result or actual qualification. Its a farce at the moment.

I totally agree. Any future CV showing A levels obtained in 2020, will be looked at with a pinch of salt by employers.

Oh that’s right, @SadSoVerySad, they’re all daft little things who have no common sense...really.

I agree exams are the final arbiter and source of empirical evidence. However, in their absence, we were asked to conduct an assessment of likely achievement against a set of criteria. We did. At length. Carefully. We are not privy to the average performance of the national cohort across the curriculum. It’s not our job. Once we had completed that, Ofqual, working on the instruction of the govt., tore it up and applied a totally different normative assessment process which was not in any way about the students’ individual performance. That’s the situation we were in; that’s what we did. Discussions about whether uni is worthwhile are neither here or there tbh.

@cologne4711

Yes, Y10 and Y12 have lost more teaching time in real terms than Y11 and Y13 did, and will have been more affected in that regard. Still, the government have almost a year to work out how to mitigate for that. Should be simple enough, right

Ha ha ha. Have you seen the Ofqual response to the consultation they ran? Virtually no changes to exams at all. And all the media was interested in was the fact there was no compulsory poetry for Eng lit GCSE . I didn't do poetry for GCSE!

So you can lose 1/5 (at least) of face to face teaching and have hardly any changes made to exams at all. This year's cohort have been dragged through the mill but it should be ok for them in the end (though I am wondering what the score is if you were rejected last week and took up a different uni place in Clearing - can you have the original place back). For next year - who knows.

Yes. This year has been awful for students, but next year will be too. This Govt couldn't care less as none of their children will be affected.

I totally agree. Any future CV showing A levels obtained in 2020, will be looked at with a pinch of salt by employers.

Will they shite. If a student goes on to get degree then that will take precedence anyway and if A-levels are the highest qualification an applicant has for a non-graduate role then many other factors are still going to be considered.

Also in both cases there would probably be a number of applicants in the same boat so a prospective employer would be benchmarking candidates against each other rather than solely qualifications.

My children are going into years 11 and 13 and I am worried. The older one is due three A* and an A in her A levels but with at least one university offering money to students to defer I am worried about the space allocation for next year.

Grade inflation helps no one. Students not genuinely able to sit A levels or go to university are potentially going to struggle and if it doesn't go well it could be a waste of time and money as well as knocking their confidence. Questions will be asked as to why teachers got students through on As and As in 2020 but not in subsequent years, which again points out the stupidity in looking at what students and schools achieved in previous years. It should be about individual students as they do the work and rarely affect another persons results.* Why the option with limiting, keeping kids down, sticking to a ridiculous formula. Kids are individuals. Some teachers are shit and don't get anything out of someone. Other teachers are amazing and can get a kid struggling on a D up to a C or B. It is a mess and with idiots running the country then where is no hope. I would be interested to know if anyone in "power" has a child who has missed out on sitting exams this year.

I agree there are all sorts of university-related issues, but the likelihood of your daughter going up against someone for a job for which they are identically well-suited except for an A Level grade is vanishingly unlikely.

If universities have to give 2021 places to this years students because they don’t have space for all those who now meet offers it will have a big impact on students doing exams in 2021 as there will be less places available.
Above is from PP . I agree.

High flying students wanting to go to college based universities such as Cambridge and Durham will be as there will be less places as students will be rolled over. Unis where you live in can’t expand places as easily.