To be struggling to take this years GCSE grades seriously

[awaywiththecircus]

It’s no the dcs fault but I do think the GCSE results this year will be taken with a pinch of salt. I do feel sorry the the students who would have actually got a bunch of 8 and 9s if they’d sat the actual tests as it seems more than ever are getting those grades this year and it does make you wonder. We’re they not meant to be for the very top percentage of students? I’ve spoken to a parent who is pleased the marks were centre assessed as he thinks his ds probably wouldn’t have passed his maths and English if he’d actually sat them,

I feel so sad for the exam cohorts this year. My best friend is an exams officer for a fantastic college and she said when submitting the paperwork for that for the first year of doing her job (20+ years) not one single pupil has failed. She said staff found it very difficult to separate the person from the grades they were predicting. Whilst it is fantastic on one hand and they have had it tough, so a bit of good news is welcome. I agree with op, it had the potential to backfire on them. For example, the new yr11s have also missed a significant chunk of their gcse/a level studies, how will it be made fair for them?

Maybe they should have done a '2020 pass/fail' with the option to retake in November.

But unless you are planning to employ a school leaver or are in charge of 6th form admissions it doesn't matter what you think. If you're that bothered set your own test.

I should hope not, my sons results are in line with his gcse expected outcomes that I’ve had included with his termly progress report and his mock exams. This whole situation is a massive shitshow.

He will likely get to ‘prove’ he deserves them when he sits his a levels down the road, and gets similar grades but many won’t be so lucky. Don’t be so harsh on kids who’ve already had a horrible time of things this year through no fault of their own.

Unfortunately it appears there has been massive inconsistency in the way different schools have given grades. Some will have applied the rules rigorously while others will have given over inflated grades.

In fact in the secondary school I teach in, some departments have been super generous with others less so. (In fact, I wonder what the SLT did to moderate them internally).

I’m afraid that the 2020 GCSEs and A levels have been undermined by this process.

I'm in Wales so we still have the old letters rather than numbers

My son had a mixture of results (from A to D) - which does fit with him academically. Last year they did modules in some subjects - those subjects he actually got the same grade (was very shocked last year at the A in physics and A in chemistry - not so much this year, if he'd been awarded A/A* in English and Welsh I'd have thought they were overinflated - he's never been wonderful at them but his results pretty much tie in with what was expected.
Obviously I don't know though if exam nerves would have set in and dropped his marks (or conversely if he would have pulled off better marks in the exam than expected)

I agree OP, the clear massive grade inflation has devalued the results and I feel sorry for the real grade 8/9 students. There is a danger that some students take on 'A' levels that they will really struggle with.

That said, having a DC who did GCSE last year, I feel this year have really missed out on actually having to revise for and sit a proper exam. It is clear from this whole debacle that not all mock exams are equal in schools and students have missed out on the exam 'experience'. This is not a good thing.

They are warning at the over subscribed local sixth form that in some subject there are too many students with the required grades especially 7 for maths and science and 8 for further maths being the normal bench mark but it’s not making a dent in the numbers. What’s worse is the attached school seems to have been much harsher than other schools in marking.

they should have found a way for the kids to sit their exams.
How, exactly??

I didn't deliberately inflate the grades of my students. However, in a normal year, i might have 6 students predicted a 5. They all got 5 in the mocks. One exam day, one revises really hard, and is lucky with the questions. He gets an 6. One child has a bad night's sleep and gets a 4, and one writes about Mr Birling not Mrs Birling and so ends up with a 3.

But how on earth was I supposed to predict which scenario would play out for each student? I can't, so they all got a 5.

After everything that has happened this year you are worried that a few GCSE students might have slightly inflated grades? SERIOUSLY?

Jeanne I think they where just making sure each department had be splint the guilds lines correctly and checking a number of random students grades. To double check, our school has had problems in the past but we have a new head and he seems a bit of a stickler for making sure evening is done by the book.

My dd was predicted very credible grades and has got into 6th form - she has worked hard and has got to the next stage. It’ll be her A Levels which matter in future as well as further qualifications.

Next year’s exam cohort will have to be moderated in line with 2019 results but I agree that it is harder for them now as they have missed so much critical schooling. Maybe their results can be inflated slightly to compensate.

Other than that I think what matters is that all of this year’s exam cohort can move to the next stage with optimism and hope. The algorithm did the opposite of that but luckily it’s gone. How can it be that someone who was predicted a C gets a U - one of many examples.

@RabbityMcRabbit

they should have found a way for the kids to sit their exams. How, exactly??

I've done online exams before - worked fine. There were ways and means but the problem wasn't with the teachers but at a strategic level a knee jerk decision was made and teachers and kids have had to deal with the fallout

I certainly submitted CAGs for 2's, 3's. Because that's what I thought those students were on track to get.

Each of my grades was long considered. Evidence, data, marks pored over. Then they were moderated by middle management and then senior management before submission.

What we couldn't account for was those kids whose dog died the week before, who had a bad day, who misread the question etc.

We submitted based on our view of their likely outcome. But we can't be 100% accurate.

Even as a senior examiner we don't know what mark = what grade. We can only judge by previous years when we do mocks and mark against that mark scheme. When we mark exams it's just numbers. We don't know where grade boundaries will sit. So it's really hard to do well.

There should have been a far better moderation process in place. Not the ridiculous algorithm. That would have helped. I mean Ofsted inspectors have had nothing to do since March and we submitted the grades in April so 🤷‍♀️

• following, dam auto correct 😒

Op does it matter?

A few kids will get into a college course they shouldn't, they'll sink or swim. Some people in future years will have a pass on English and Maths they shouldn't. They'll still have to interview and if they get the job they'll again sink or swim.

Everyone will remember the year of the questionable results but hopefully they'll also remember the hell many of them have been through before they get on with the "ooh, you didn't earn those" rhetoric

I have some students who I submitted 3s for, who got 8s and 9s.
They will be the exception rather than the rule, thankfully.

But some kids have gone down from the mocks...I don't understand it.

One question I had is why aren't the mocks standardised - eg. The exam board sets a paper and provides a mark scheme and says when these should be completed. It's a bit random to have schools sitting wildly different mocks and at different points in the year.

At the end of the day these poor kids should have sat their exams. We failed them by allowing this poor excuse of a government to cancel them. There really was no reason.

This was the least bad option, after the government decided not to hold the exams

Ofqal tested their algorithm / model on the 2019 results and found it only predicted the correct grade in 35-55% of exams, depending on the subject

The algorithm downgraded some students; upgraded others
It was intended to achieve the "target" total of grade A,B,C etc, but could not allocate the correct grade to individual students

I've just written my brightest and most insightful post ever. Then the dog snapped a fly and knocked me and my carefully worded post was lost forever. You'll just have to take my word for it. But this doesn't mean the deleted words are any less valid or marvellous!! A bit like the GCSE grades this year.

To be honest this cohort are going to be dealing with the fallout of this for years. Unable to work towards improving on their mocks, FE provision will be affected, socially isolated, increased mental health issues.

But just because some people like to be arseholes they're also going to be labelled as the cohort who's exam results don't mean much. Nice.

Fortunately for some they will go onto other education and the GCSEs / ALevels become less relevant but for many this will be how they will be judged (by awful people) when applying for jobs. Fucking great.

Yeah, lucky, lucky bastards. Having to leave school with no fanfare and no rituals. Missing their proms. Missing the opportunity to sit exams so when they do their A levels in two years they won't have lived through an exam period and learned to pace themselves, manage stress, exam technique etc.

Good job they are handing out grade 9s like toffees, apparently.

Weirdly my ds and all his friends must be thick as pigshit as they all got grades much in line with their expected performance. Where they missed out is it's all flattened. There was no opportunity for a surprise 9 when you absolutely smashed an exam out if the park. No opportunity for a disaster where your predicted 7 becomes a 2. DS is "upper middle" and his grades are 5s and 6s across the board. His pal who is "bright" got 7s and 8s across the board. His pal who struggles got 4s. Overall, it was the best thing to do in the circumstances, none of which, I might add, was this cohort's fault.

She said staff found it very difficult to separate the person from the grades they were predicting.

This is a bit of a nonsense comment - it implies teachers are incapable of being objective about their classes, which isn’t true. No students failing doesn’t prove that - if, by March of y13, you’re PREDICTING that a student will get a U - in other words, write nothing worthy of marks on more than one exam paper - they should not be on the course or entered into the exam. So of course no students were predicted to fail. That a very small percentage (and it is very small; I can’t remember the last year I had a y13 class where a student got a U) will fail is predictable, but not who those students may be, as it depends on a wide range of factors. You might have ten students in the college who might have a complete meltdown in the exam and write nothing. In a good year, none of them will, in a bad year, two or three. But we can’t just arbitrarily give U grades to three of them at random.

I wish some sad people wouldn’t spout total and utter bullshit. My ds sat his English lit last year, he was predicted a 7 but achieved an 8. This year his English language predicted grade was a 7 but he’s been awarded a 6, so no it’s not the year of Mickey Mouse exams ! to whichever imbecile suggested it. He received the highest score in his maths SAT from the whole year, and has consistently put the work in! He is fully deserving of the excellent grades he’s achieved!!

My son only got a 3 in English and was predicted a 5 and is gutted. However he got a higher grade in Science which he had not expected. Not sure exactly what went on there.