A level grades

[DolphinFC]

If feel that value of an A grade ar A level has been reduced dramatically. I feel truly sorry for those very bright, hard-working students who would've got an A grade no matter what. Their deserved A grade is now lost in a pile of undeserved A grades.

@spongedod

A and above...

2018 - 26.2%

2019 - 25.2%

2020 - 27.6%

2021 - 44.3%

All taken fro Gov website.

Yes this huge rise will have a detrimental affect - how could it not?

The list above is wrong - specifically the 2020 figure.

Figures for "A" or better from ofqual, gov.uk, and media outlets are:

ENGLAND
2019 - 25.2%
2020 - 38.1%
2021 - 44.3%

WALES
2019 - 27.0%
2020 - 41.8%
2021 - 48.3%

N.IRELAND
2019 - 30.9%
2020 - 43.3%
2021 - 50.8%

In a normal year teachers would have laid on revision classes supported student to do the best they could in the exams. This year that simply did not happen at many places - there was not the support. Some students will have done better some worse - the impact is quite random and that has been unsettling for students.

twelly I can see that that would be the case last year but why would revision classes have been affected this year? The teens that I know of certainly all had them (GCSE and A Level). Admittedly the majority of those teens are at independent schools but by no means all. Except for schools where the older year groups were very heavily hit by isolations, I think revision classes will have happened as normal.

Surely after last year's fiasco this was all entirely predictable?

I clicked on this thread just knowing it would be a pile of scorn heaped on students. Bloody hell.

What, honestly is the alternative? Being incredibly strict on the grades, so no students can progress on to university?

That'll teach 'em.

@spotcheck

I clicked on this thread just knowing it would be a pile of scorn heaped on students. Bloody hell.

What, honestly is the alternative? Being incredibly strict on the grades, so no students can progress on to university?

That'll teach 'em.

You seriously can't see an alternative between being unrealistically lenient and unrealistically harsh?

And here it comes: news today that ministers are now thinking of numeric grades instead of alphabetical.

The grades have been arrived at via coursework, assignments, perhaps some smaller exams.
Teachers aren't allowed to just pull grades out of their ear. Exam boards are doing random checks if results.

This seems like a far fairer way of determining a grade- based on their overall level of work. It means that students who don't do well in exams had the "opportunity' to get a better result. Again- based on their work!

This is a good thing.

There will be an almighty panic as girls did better than boys

@blameitonthecaffeine

twelly I can see that that would be the case last year but why would revision classes have been affected this year? The teens that I know of certainly all had them (GCSE and A Level). Admittedly the majority of those teens are at independent schools but by no means all. Except for schools where the older year groups were very heavily hit by isolations, I think revision classes will have happened as normal.

In my area the sixth form offered no additional revision sessions , the teachers did far less than they did in previous years. I think that some teachers used it as an excuse to do less as they now had the power to determine grades. The student experience across the country is very different

I’m practice I suspect employers for Grad schemes will look at gcses abs university for this cohort. There are already so many online tests etc that it probably won’t make a massive difference. I think the biggest impact would be on the students who got low predicted grades but who might have pulled it out of the bag in an exam situation and got to a better university.

No revision sessions here either for two of the three subjects.
Has only been in college for two days a week (when not SI) since they reopened in January due to the number of students, they alternated with the year 12's.
Last full week face to face teaching was March 2020.

Girls pretty much always do better than boys.

Don’t girls on average always do better than boys.

When I was at school it was always said that boys did better than girls, but I think that was because they only looked at the STEM subjects and ignored all the boys who came out of school with no qualifications (but this was in 70/80s)

And as for the panic over independent schools doing better - no shit sherlock

Obviously there were variations, but our private school didn't miss a single day of full online teaching right from the very beginning.

Either teaching matters or it doesn't.

@Bryonyshcmyony I assume most pupils in your school had access to technology from day one. How do you think schools in deprived areas would have managed that?

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@Bryonyshcmyony I assume most pupils in your school had access to technology from day one. How do you think schools in deprived areas would have managed that?[/quote]
No idea, and yes they did. It's not a moral judgment. Just a very obvious explanation

It is interesting though to see that remote learning can work well if it had such a significant impact on results. Will be interesting to see if similar impact on GCSEs, or whether it is mainly because A-level students are used to more independent working. And whether this will have an impact on how schools/colleges operate in the future.

DS’s school (private) have asked all students to bring in laptops everyday next term, due to some of the work practices the school learned whilst providing remote provision. Will be interesting to see how this impacts day to day teaching

@Bryonyshcmyony schools in deprived areas didn’t miss days because they thought teaching didn’t matter.

Lack of access to technology was the biggest stumbling block. That’s a very obvious explanation.

Bryonyshcmyony

Obviously there were variations, but our private school didn't miss a single day of full online teaching right from the very beginning.
Neither did our school. Inner city comprehensive. Online teaching from the start.
Pupils missed plenty of online lessons though. No WiFi, no computer, no tablet, overcrowded households, shared resources.

Either teaching matters or it doesn't.
Very smug. This implies it’s the teacher’s fault.
You didn’t think about how a pupil’s circumstance affected their access to online learning did you? Sounds like you think everyone has access to technology.

Wealthier families fare better has been a general theme of this pandemic.

[quote JustLyra]@Bryonyshcmyony schools in deprived areas didn’t miss days because they thought teaching didn’t matter.

Lack of access to technology was the biggest stumbling block. That’s a very obvious explanation.[/quote]
I didnt mean thst I thought some schools thought teaching didn't matter

I meant that the pundits on the radio trying to get their heads round why private schools did better seemed to dismiss the idea that perhaps it was because the majority had full online teaching (that people particularly on here kept saying didn't matter at the time)

@JustLyra I was trying to work out whether that poster meant the schools couldn’t be bothered to teach, or it shows the impact of lost learning in schools where immediate remote provision couldn’t be provided, for whatever reason.

I know not everyone has access to technology.

That is a very simple explanation as to why they did so much better

And yes I agree thst wealthier families fare better has been the defining theme of this pandemic

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@JustLyra I was trying to work out whether that poster meant the schools couldn’t be bothered to teach, or it shows the impact of lost learning in schools where immediate remote provision couldn’t be provided, for whatever reason.[/quote]
I absolutely didn't mean the schools couldn't be bothered to teach! They were told that they didn't have to by the government I believe, not their fault. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

It is an observation about lost learning as PP has said