To think that this is excellent news in the absence of exams

[scoutingfornarwhals]

Gavin Williamson has said - He also reiterated that there would be "no algorithms whatsoever" used in determining A-level, AS and GCSE grades, with marks "firmly in the hands of teachers".

At last, the government are showing faith in teachers, i can relax about the exam results as my DCs teachers know them and they will get appropriate grades whether high, average or low.

It's about bloody time.

Like pp Ds performs well in exams. He responds well to the pressure

Hopefully will get some of that still

It’s unrealistic to think teachers don’t have students they prefer teaching to others, it’s human nature. But teachers are professionals and they won’t let it affect the grades they predict students. Many on here have stories of being marked down in mocks or whatever l when they were younger, but that’s not the same as teachers giving students their actual qualifications. As many others have said, any favouritism would not stand up to the moderation process and it would be fairly obvious if two students had both been working at a 5 all year and one was given a 3 and the other an 8. Grades can be appeals and exams sat next year if you are really happy so I don’t think any students need to feel worried and it’s the best option we have.

Good plan as long as parents are not allowed any input! All teachers know the sort of parent referred to. No appeals either.

@peak2021

I think it is the best option in the absence of exams. I do share the concern about the reaction of parents who are either entitled, unable to cope with disappointment, or have an overinflated view of their child's abilities in the subject.

I wonder if the regulations on this could include something that makes it very clear that a school cannot be sued?

No parental input, no appeals, no exceptions even for Moi.

Best option of a lot of bad ones. I’m not sure what the alternatives were when exams were cancelled.

Like all systems it will have problems. (Like exams only favour those that can concentrate hard over three hours repeatedly over a couple of weeks.)

• Whether employers and colleges and the wider public believe in the grades. However that isn’t entirely a new thing - an enquiry into whether exams were easier was announced a few days after my GCSE results - felt horrible
• Unconscious bias against certain groups such as some ethnic minority or disabled students.

-Grade inflation due to fairness for individual students - if the school knows that a student could get between C on a bad day and A on a good day err on the side of A or B.

• problems for students who haven’t had the chance to fully cover the syllabus. At Alevel/some university courses you build on skills and knowledge from GCSE or A level - if you haven’t covered how do you catch up or do the exams in future years change?

Both my children would do better with this method and I'm still not sure it's right. Don't need to worry about it until next year though and who knows what will be happening then.
I'm surprised teachers are supposed to find the time to do all this. It sounds like a massive amount of work on top of their "normal" work. Or have I missed something?

For those worried about “favouritism”:

Something we do within our department is moderate on anonymous pieces. So teachers will grade work, then each piece is anonymised and it’s remarked by two other members of staff. This is done to check our marking is consistent. Any pieces where marks are vastly different are looked at as a team.
This is not uncommon practice - most MATS will have a moderation team working on big exams to ensure marking is consistent.

This will certainly be part of the approach taken by many schools.

Give over with “the sort of parents”. Some of us have very real experiences of our children being marked down and grades under estimated by teachers. My DS would never had gotten into his current uni if he had been teacher assessed. Some children need “the sort of parents” who believe in them when their teachers don’t. I wonder what evidence the teachers will use as I see very little work being handed out to my GCSE student. Luckily he is a teachers pet so sure he will be fine

PandoraP

An "interesting" post.

But that could be said by either "that sort of parent" or a concerned parent.

I know of several pupils that will suffer due to teacher assessment not due to being disliked or because they are disruptive but because they have done no work.
In an exam situation however they would cram for a couple of weeks before and get excellent grades.

I also know of pupils that will benefit as their work has been no less than superb, yet they cannot cope with exams.

The sad thing is that when "generalising" the parents of the first sort make to most noise, and its never ever their child's fault but generalising is apparently only ever bad when it's about parents or children some see "teachers" as far game.

wander I would think if they're between a B and a C after weeks and weeks of face to face teaching missed and repeated self isolation, and they're still nudging a B, they get the B as this would likely have been achieved (at least) under normal circumstances.
My worry is students don't have the opportunity to achieve better than predicted. Again, DS1 did this in five of his GCSE's. He worked towards peaking for exams.
An SLT friend also alluded to the fact that girls are subconsciously favoured and generally predicted higher too. Make of that what you will.

@cptartapp I’m shocked a member of slt would say that to you. I will be giving my students grades this year and did last year too, and can assure you there is no bias towards girls, boys or any other kind of bias at my school for grades. It’s all done fairly and again, if there was a girl and a boy with the exact same ‘evidence’ and one was predicted a 4 and the other a 5, this certainly would be questioned and have to be justified.

@FrippEnos, I am not sure how to read your post. All I know is that my child was teacher assessed and predicted 4 and 5s at GCSE when in fact he got all 8 and 9s in the exams. If I predicted that much off in my line of work, there would be serious questions asked.

In primary school dd was described as brighter than ds1 (after ds1 had left for the highest performing grammar in our area).
She fought tooth and nail to go to the local comprehensive with her friends.
Ds1 achieved all A/A* grades except for one subject.
Dd has been predicted grades of mainly 6s and 7s in all of her reports since she has been at her school, in the last two years she has been assessed as smashing these.
I'm expecting her final grades to reflect her reports.

Ds2 would have been another kettle of fish- some topics he would score highest in the class, others towards the bottom. I don't envy teachers trying to assess dc like him but I have faith that they will do their best to be fair.

Part of the problem is that as parents we all want our dc to get top marks and have little experience to compare our dc with. Having had one very academic dc and one very unacademic dc already go through the process I can appreciate that dd falls in the middle and will be assessed appropriately.
I'm pleased a decision has finally been made as dd is more relaxed already, helped in part by a couple of her teachers cancelling zoom classes and setting no work today.

She plans to get the A level syllabus and books to look at ahead of starting her A level choices. She did point out though that she would be sitting her first formal exams at A level with no previous experience of how they work. I hope the schools can talk them through this in a couple of years time.

Same here PandoraP
My son is quiet and works very hard but always seems to get overlooked in class. He doesn't have good communication skills but is about as far from the disruptive last minute crammer as you can get.
Wnen we got his end of year 12 report I was particularly worried about his grade in one subject and arranged a phone call with the teacher. I was told that there wasn't a problem - it was the expected level for DS. I had to understand that not everyone could achieve high grades at A level, especially those who had only just got a good enough GCSE to get on the course. He got a 9 at GCSE, but this was clearly news to the teacher who got quite flustered when I told her.
I've hired a tutor who teaches the same subject at another local school. After his first couple of sessions she called me to ask was I really sure I wanted her to continue as she felt like she was taking my money under false pretences. She says she can't understand the comments in his report - its like it has been written about another person. So I do struggle with the mantra that "teachers know the pupils best". I'm sure lots do. But not all.
I don't suppose there is anything I can do and I don't have a magic answer. There isn't a solution that will work for everyone. We will have to accept the situation, but I am not going to pretend to be pleased about it.

@PandoraP

What is your line of work?

My point is simple.

I know pupils that have worked hard through out the year and by all the evidence are working at 8s and 9s yet fail the exams.

I know pupils that by the evidence are working at 4s and 5s (produced little work or work that has detail missing) yet in the exam get 8s and 9s in the exams.

Not for me. I've name changed for this, because it's outing to anyone I've moaned to.

It will massively disadvantage my DC who is being under predicted hugely by his teachers because he's idle and has struggled to self motivate in both lockdowns. He is very bright and does well in exams.

They sit RS GCSE in Y10 at his school, so as to get it out of the way before Y11. Last year, despite him achieving 6s and 7s up til March his teacher awarded him a Grade 3. A fail. He was pissed off when it arrived in August and we told him to sit the exam in November.

In November - 8 months after he last had an RE lesson and with no revision classes or anything - he sat the exam. He got his result a fortnight ago and it was a Grade 7. Four grades higher than his CAG.

He is currently being predicted 4s and 5s from his teachers across the board, despite having targets of 7s and 8s. I assume they will award him these 4s.

He will never get the GCSEs that he should have got without a pandemic and all of his teachers admit he is very bright but doesn't appear to be working. No shit. He doesn't see the point because teachers hate me and they'll just fail me, anyway.

It's impossible for us to feel that he is genuinely being given the grades he would have got if he'd sat his exams. It is not excellent news for us.

I have complained to the school and asked for an explanation into the disparity between their CAG and the actual grade he got. We have been fobbed off.

@MargaretThursday

It's a bad idea for several reasons.

Firstly there will be grade inflation. And, guess what, it'll probably favour the middle classes. It'll also be worse than last year where some schools put them well up (one local private school gave everyone 9s for all, despite their normal range being only about 5% 9s-they normally got more 5/6s than 9s) so you'll get schools putting it up further to try and outdo the other schools that are putting it up.

Grade inflation works a number of ways.

1. People will look at the year and discount it/mentally knock it down a notch or two.
2. People who got a genuinely deserved 7, will be regarded as the same as the person who was inflated 2 grades.
3. People will be doing courses that they're not suitable for. I'd be interested to see the A-level drop out rate for pupils who had their GCSE grades inflated.
4. Actually the children (I've a current year 12) don't feel they've deserved it. I've heard her talking with friends from various schools, and they've actually found it a confidence knocker. They don't feel that they deserve those grades when they've been boosted up and it makes them question their ability in other things too.

You've then got the pressure on teachers. You have a student. You know that they should definitely get a C in your subject, and with a lot of work push it up to a B. They tell you that they have a university offer to their dream place of AAA.
Then you'll get parent threats, bribery, and the pupils will know exactly where to blame if they don't get the result they/their parent wants.

I don't think it's a good thing. it's the government making sure teachers are in the firing line again.

I agree with all this really. I'm just glad my DD is Y9 and hopefully this will no longer be an issue.

I don't know why the exams couldn't have gone ahead maybe with reduced content and maybe a few weeks later.

I trust teachers more than I do algorithms, but I think there is some room for teacher bias (in either direction). Certainly if it had been down to my music teacher I would have got an E in my GCSE. Fortunately my exam hauled me up to a C.

All those parents who say my child was predicted 4s and came out with 9s, it's not fair - tell me how can a teacher possibly predict a 9 for a student who has never shown any evidence of being capable of that grade? We can only go on the evidence that we are given.

I'm afraid this sort of system will definitely penalise this students who do no work all year and then suddenly pull it out the bag at the 11th hour but I don't see a better alternative (the algorithm last year gave overall reasonable results but was incredibly unfair on an individual basis).

Maybe this is just a tough life lesson for those people that leave things to the last minute. I would hope there will be retake exams like last year and those kids can prove themselves in an exam.

Not for me. I've name changed for this, because it's outing to anyone I've moaned to

It will massively disadvantage my DC who is being under predicted hugely by his teachers because he's idle and has struggled to self motivate in both lockdowns. He is very bright and does well in exams

They sit RS GCSE in Y10 at his school, so as to get it out of the way before Y11. Last year, despite him achieving 6s and 7s up til March his teacher awarded him a Grade 3. A fail. He was pissed off when it arrived in August and we told him to sit the exam in November

Capitalise on this. There’s his motivation. Does he want to feel like that again? Or - worse - does he want to have to retake in November again? Except all of them this time?

In November - 8 months after he last had an RE lesson and with no revision classes or anything - he sat the exam. He got his result a fortnight ago and it was a Grade 7. Four grades higher than his CAG

He is currently being predicted 4s and 5s from his teachers across the board, despite having targets of 7s and 8s. I assume they will award him these 4s

Not necessarily. No school has decided the CAG yet. There are 3 months + to prove what he can do. Tell him to treat every single piece of work like a final exam. Put some pressure on if that’s how he does well.

He will never get the GCSEs that he should have got without a pandemic and all of his teachers admit he is very bright but doesn't appear to be working. No shit. He doesn't see the point because teachers hate me and they'll just fail me, anyway

I bet they find him frustrating. Again, he can change that very, very easily.

It's impossible for us to feel that he is genuinely being given the grades he would have got if he'd sat his exams. It is not excellent news for us

I have complained to the school and asked for an explanation into the disparity between their CAG and the actual grade he got. We have been fobbed off

Fobbed off? In what way?

It’s a tough one as no system is perfect. Traditional exams penalise students who do not perform well under exam pressure, despite capability, and CAGs like others have said may penalise those that pull it out the bag at the last minute. However most teachers I would imagine have been warning students since March 2020 that “you never know, we might have to do CAGs again next year,” so they would have known that would be a risky approach!

Surely a fair reflection of application, work and attainment throughout the two year period is a more accurate reflection of ability. Doing no work then cramming for a couple of weeks just says you are good at winging exams. I'd much rather my DC worked hard always and were fairly rewarded on their ability. I think it would be wonderful if in the long term we moved to this model away from one final exam.

For full disclosure I have two DC who are in yr 11. One is a consistent hard worker with non stellar achievement who is scared of exams, the other a bright but lazy last minuter. One will 'miss out' from this approach, another will gain. I am glad it is this way.

Fobbed off? In what way?

1. I was told they were very happy with how rigorous their procedure had been to check their CAGs were accurate. This is despite me asking for evidence of how they arrived at that grade - which Ofsted said should have been a holistic look at the whole 2 year course. Every piece of work and internal exam he had sat over the two years was between a Grade 5-7. In Jan 2020 he was being predicted a Grade 6 - this was the last prediction we got before March lockdown and so it was a shock when he received a Grade 3.

2. We were told it was a significant advantage to him that he got to sit the exam in Nov, as that gave him extra time to revise. This is an exam he didn't know he'd failed until end of August - and obviously had done no RE work between March and Sept. Starting again, on your own, 6 months after last having a lesson (they set nothing in lockdown) and with no real idea of exam structuring is NOT an advantage.

3. The reason he achieved 4 grades higher than they said was that he had improved massively between the March and November. The Grade they awarded him in lockdown was accurate at the time.

It's utter bollocks.

Every piece of work and internal exam he had sat over the two years was between a Grade 5-7. In Jan 2020 he was being predicted a Grade 6 - this was the last prediction we got before March lockdown and so it was a shock when he received a Grade 3

Is this still the case now, with his other subjects? Has he produced some good quality, marked work?

Oops - posted too soon User230

I can hear how frustrated and angry you are about the disparity between his RE CAG and his actual grade. Students who “pull it out of the bag” are in a really hard position this year. I as one of them, so I sympathise.

If he’s got some marked work that is his best, that’s good (although I’m recognising you have no faith in the system). Are his school running mock exams? If so, that’s his moment. He has to see them as the real thing and do his stuff.