AIBU to still be shitting myself over the GCSE grades tomorrow

[Lowhangingfruit]

According to the radio 4 show "More or less" this morning some students might not get they're teacher predicted grade. As there's another assessment I'm distraught. I have so much pinning on this tomorrow :-(

This is how it's going to go tomorrow, isn't it?

Yes, but the algorithm wasn’t published then.

Now it has been, we can see that it’s a bit mad.

@TheFallenMadonna

This is how it's going to go tomorrow, isn't it?

Yup. What a mess.

mrpumblechook

Are you a teacher?

SATs results were also taken into account so if your DC’s cohort was strong, this would bump their grades up against previous years.

Yes, the algorthm would have done hopefully but apparently they won't get them until next week. I'm worried that the DD will get her CAG result tomorrow and it will be lower than her predicted grades, mocks and other tests because her teachers decided to do their own DIY standardisation.

@SmileEachDay

mrpumblechook

Are you a teacher?

How is that relevant?

It really depends on previous cohorts. We had a boundary change and this year 11 were much brighter. However school downgraded to fit the brief to avoid being highlighted. This was before algorithms. Our grades are slightly higher but not where the would be if using teacher assessed grades. Is teachers put in our pleas and made our thoughts heard but ultimately our SLT decided to play by the book. Not all schools did.

I actually emailed the head saying that there would be a cockup and what if it reverted to centre grades. He said it wouldn't. Once again he was wrong but he did what every school was supposed to do.

My DD is collecting her results tomorrow btw, so I have a dual perspective on this.

Mr Pumple that's not the case. The algorithm will take in to account previous years - so where a school had adjusted down they would be less likely to be altered by OFQUAL

Sorry but just read a comment that sounds bonkers, your result in based on lots of mocks that they did over a period of time, not their latest one. The whole idea of the teaching of GCSEs is to get you a good result at the end of 2 years it’s not an average.

mrpumble I know it’s difficult waiting for results but there is no point in worrying about something that might possibly go wrong when you might actually be pleasantly surprised tomorrow.

Better to put it out of your mind and watch something lighthearted on Netflix.

Madonna me too! Year 11 parent, teacher and my form were Y11 too!

@Pieceofpurplesky

Mr Pumple that's not the case. The algorithm will take in to account previous years - so where a school had adjusted down they would be less likely to be altered by OFQUAL

What would be the problem with the algorithm adjusting down slightly optimistic results? It was supposed to do more than just take into account previous years.

@noblegiraffe

mrpumble I know it’s difficult waiting for results but there is no point in worrying about something that might possibly go wrong when you might actually be pleasantly surprised tomorrow.

Better to put it out of your mind and watch something lighthearted on Netflix.

Yes, I think I will have a glass of wine.

Good idea, mrpumble cheers! I’ll definitely be joining you in a bit.

Glasses for everyone. 🥺

In simple terms can someone explain what centre assessment grades means and takes into account.

Until I read this thread I thought tomorrow’s grades were now based on teacher assessment.

How is that relevant?

Because if you’re not, I imagine it’s quite hard getting your head around a) how teachers try and be accurate with our assessment of where children are b) how schools have internally moderated these particular grades and c) how completely bonkers the DfE are, and how teachers generally view them with lots of suspicion.

Enjoy your wine - hope tomorrow goes ok for you.

Yup I think a lot of people have been sold a bit of a lie about the results 😭

Centre assessed grades weren’t just down to the class teacher. Most likely the teacher came up with grades for their class based on things like mock results and knowledge of the pupil (e.g. grandma died in mock week, would expect a higher result in the real thing), these were submitted to their head of department who had an overview of all the results and could check that each teacher’s grades made sense against each other and fitted what the department expected to get this year.

Then these would have gone to the senior leadership who would have checked the whole school’s results in all subjects were reasonable before sending them off.

So not just down to the teacher. I personally don’t know what my class CAGs were that were sent off, just what I submitted in March.

From the AQA website: CAGs

The centre assessment grade is the teacher's professional judgement of the most likely grade a student would have achieved if exams had gone ahead.
It should be based on a range of evidence including mock exams, non-exam assessment, homework assignments and any other record of student performance over the course of study.

Schools then created a rank order of all students within each grade, for every subject.

This might be all students at Grade 5 in GCSE Maths or at Grade B in A-level Biology.

They were then ranked from highest to lowest – where student 1 is the most secure at that grade, student 2 the next most secure, and so on.

Two subject teachers needed to sign off the centre assessment grade, one of whom should be the Head of Department.
The Head of Centre would then have signed off the centre assessment grade and the rank order, declaring the information is accurate and represents their professional judgement.

Thank you both for explaining.

As noblegiraffe explained- most schools data crunched their CAGs before sending them off in an attempt to try not to trigger a mass downgrade by the algorithm. We certainly had our GCSE grades bounced back to us by the school data bod and were told we had too many of a particular grade compared to previous years and we needed to tweak them. We adjusted them as far as we were comfortable and handed them back saying ‘we know they are still higher than last year but it’s for good reasons and we can’t drop them any further.’ I hope those were the grades that were sent off but I don’t know for certain. They are all fair and I feel comfortable about seeing my class tomorrow . The fact that schools were working hard to try and produce a set of results that looked pretty normal for them has protected CAGs from being fantasy results.
I was expecting the algorithm to adjust some of the grades down but when the A level results came out I felt very worried because rather than a few children at the bottom of a grade boundary dropping one grade down , some pupils seem to be crashing down grade boundaries sometimes out of their rank order sequence. Essentially the system we had been lead to believe would operate was not what we saw unfolding.

I am much happier that the students are getting CAGs tomorrow even though they will be in the main, best case scenarios and higher than normal nationally. The huge unfairness we saw last week should be avoided.

Good luck @lowhangingfruit - I really hope you get a result that means you can do your next course.

@Lowhangingfruit Good luck