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.

Having said that, last year St whatsists wouldnt even have had the algorithm applied as it was too small - small private schools could literally do what they wanted last year with no threat of moderation so I wouldn't take their results at all seriously then

how do you explain the higher amount of As from private schools in a normal exam cycle*

Again, independent schools are very different.

Some - like Winchester - are very academic.

Some are not. Some really cater to children who need cushioning or extra support.

It would be really interesting to see the spread of A* grades and where the increase is coming from.

If a number of individual schools that don't normally get A*s suddenly blossom with them in 2020 and 2021, then that would be interesting.

Of course you can get the odd good year, but you'd expect that to average out over the country.

I'd say most private secondary schools are above average academically

Yes there are a few that come out with below avaerge grades and put tree climbing high on the agenda but these are increasingly in a minority

Or they have moved to doing lots of BTECS eg Milton Abbey

@Bryonyshcmyony

Why would St whatsists care? Those kids have left and no league tables this year

In fact parents lower down the school wouldn't want rampant grade inflation thst doesn't benefit them at all

St Whatsits predicted As across the board this year, and is presumably included in the stats.

Its teachers cared very much about their little group of pupils and carefully provided a large amount of individual help in fashioning beautifully organised folders to evidence their grades.

The headteacher is delighted with the results and plans to mention them as often as possible when speaking to prospective parents.

They have already posted letters from grateful parents and students on the school website, about how wonderful to was over lockdown

Well good for them! I expect that individual attention is what makes parents choose it in the first place plus the continuity of teaching was a big draw this year

Our school is full with a long wait list

@herecomesthsun,

It is not just tiny St Whatsits that worries about filling their sixth form. Many relatively well known London private schools have their top GCSE pupils creamed off by the same names: St Paul’s, Westminster, Latymer Upper etc.

In addition, quite a few pupils are lost to the state sector at this point, some for financial reasons and others who are playing the game of having their Oxbridge (or other top Uni) application looked upon more favourably as coming from the state sector.

Although there are many ways of increasing sixth form retention (fantastic facilities being one), grades and added value will always be a major part of it. Who would pay £20k plus to send their child to a school with average results?!

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@herecomesthsun,

It is not just tiny St Whatsits that worries about filling their sixth form. Many relatively well known London private schools have their top GCSE pupils creamed off by the same names: St Paul’s, Westminster, Latymer Upper etc.

In addition, quite a few pupils are lost to the state sector at this point, some for financial reasons and others who are playing the game of having their Oxbridge (or other top Uni) application looked upon more favourably as coming from the state sector.

Although there are many ways of increasing sixth form retention (fantastic facilities being one), grades and added value will always be a major part of it. Who would pay £20k plus to send their child to a school with average results?![/quote]
Well people do, but I agree with you that I can't quite understand why

If a school has all the benefits of small class sizes, less teacher churn, up to date tech and an excellent board of governors and still produces poor results then it must be pretty awful

@Bryonyshcmyony,

You are not competing with the state sector, you are competing with the private school down the road.

So, if they are ‘adding’ a grade to the Midyis predict (Allis at A level), you want to be adding at least 1.2.

A business (which is essentially what a private school is) being able to review its own product is a recipe for grade inflation….

Well I don't know because that would suggest 100% of pupils would get as or as and that definitely wasn't the case. The results for us were only slightly up on years before but they already get strings of As and As, I think the lowest anyone got in 2019 was one D in the whole sixth form

@Bryonyshcmyony,

Not at all.

The grades did have to be evidence based, so if the most a pupil had ever achieved was a C, they would get a C.

However, if their topic test average was a B, but they had never achieved more than a C in an exam, the school could grade that pupil a B and back it with ‘evidence’.

Also, if any (non top) school exaggerated ridiculously, it would be moderated down by the boards.

The process was generally an objective and scientific way of awarding very optimistic (but not totally impossible) grades to every pupil. In an actual exam, some would have achieved this grade, most would average half a grade or so under it, and another few would actually have a bad day and have missed the TAGs by two grades or more. This is how a (log)normal distribution works.

If you have basically a child who does not excel at exams, they won't pass tests to get into competitive schools.

But then you wouldn't want them to languish in a comp.

So you find a nice school that will nurture them instead and make them feel special, and entice out hidden talents.

That is your market for St. Whatsits.

Could get that for ballpark £17k/annum on a quick google, less up North.

Kids that are not-very-good-at-tests are still probably not going to ace exams (except in a pandemic when there aren't any) but in normal times might at least leave with some qualifications whereas they would struggle to get any at the comp.

There's also the class thing. If you send your kid to St. Whatsits they will make friends with the children of other small businessmen, whereas if they go to the comp, their friends might not be so "nice".

I mean honestly Bryonyshcmyony can you put your hand on your heart and say you don’t think a single candidate has benefited from inflation? Or even a percentage of them? Of all the 18 year olds who sit A levels, who we all know are a mixture of all sorts of people, you think that half of them are A/A* standard? You don’t think at all that there are some kids (or their parents or teachers) who deep down know they’ve come out of it lucky? Or that there aren’t some kids (or their parents or teachers) who are truly exceptional now feeling jibbed they are now indistinguishable from Billy Slacker?

The only way that half of them can be considered A/A* standard is if the grades are worthless. Anyone who got a B or below is now in the bottom 50%. Any grade of C or below means you must be hopeless. And people are ok with this?

So many people who want the pretty lie rather than the ugly truth.

Absolutely.

I haven't RTFT, but it was interesting (but sadly unsurprising) to see the media seize on any opportunity to complain about private schools having an unfair advantage. I listened to the BBC interview with BoJo's short-lived catch-up tsar, and what he repeatedly said was that this wasn't (just) about private vs state schools. He said that the grades this year have shown up the inequalities in the state system just as much as, if not more than, the inequalities between state and private. There were strong regional disparities, for example - grades in the deprived NE went down, while grades in state schools in more affluent areas soared. And these disparities affect far more children than any state v private divide. But what does the media seize on? 'The system favours private schools again.'

Now we have two years of results (from teacher assessment) that are obviously unbelievable

Thing is those grades aren’t unbelievable for some students, so obviously if a thread is started from people saying that ‘grades were handed out etc’ then people are going to say no they weren’t

I think everyone knows children who have benefited, ds1 wasnt great at exams so although his results years ago were good they'd be much much better this year. And i know he is intelligent…we had him tested 😀

And obviously if the best pieces of work children did were picked as evidence the grades are going to be better

Who are we picking to have the undeserved Higher grades…..quite obviously ds2 deserved his

Yes, dd probabiy benefited from no exams as she gets so anxious. No argument there. Although she was quite up for taking them when we thought that might be an option

And she is typical hard working diligent female student, slogging away at each piece of coursework and upset if anything is below an A
Exams could have gone either way tbh

Sorry

I think it would be interesting to see the schools percentage increase

The local state secondary had higher grades last year by about 2/3%, (pre algorithm which was partly to blame for last year’s inflation) which wasn’t particularly unreasonable

It might be interesting but it's pointless and irrelevant as it's done

@Bryonyshcmyony

And she is typical hard working diligent female student, slogging away at each piece of coursework and upset if anything is below an A Exams could have gone either way tbh

Same with my eldest

Dont get me wrong….he had a habit of writing A* essays which bore no resemblance to the actual question

But usually he was very good, very diligent (and much cleverer than i thought 😳 but then how am I supposed to know he’s clever when even at 15 he didnt seem to understand what wardrobes were for)

But when I say benefited, I mean kids who clearly aren’t in the upper echelons of ability but somehow clearly came out with a grade that has raised eyebrows.

I find it impossible to believe that already, or in the very near future, everyone won’t know of a candidate who got a grade that didn’t make people go “Really?”

It won’t be anyone’s own kid of course, it will be other people’s .

@Bryonyshcmyony

It might be interesting but it's pointless and irrelevant as it's done

Not if this is going to happen going forward…

Changes to current gcse may be made, although I doubt it

Lots of things that are interesting are irrelevant

Incidentally, the chair of the association of school leaders has just been quoted as saying that comparisons between this year's results and other years are 'somewhat meaningless'. Unfortunately that's not much comfort to kids that are scrambling for university places (or for next year's cohort who are going to be competing for places with the students from this year's cohort who have in some cases been paid to defer).

@Bryonyshcmyony

Any thoughts on the questions I asked?

@NotBadConsidering

But when I say benefited, I mean kids who clearly aren’t in the upper echelons of ability but somehow clearly came out with a grade that has raised eyebrows.

I find it impossible to believe that already, or in the very near future, everyone won’t know of a candidate who got a grade that didn’t make people go “Really?”

It won’t be anyone’s own kid of course, it will be other people’s .

Maybe I'm just not thst interested in what other people's children got in their A levels because I can't imagine judging any teen like this, I have no idea how clever or not my children's friends are or what they are capable of academically

But you have lots to say on the broad context of these results, but now you’re not prepared to wager an answer on how accurate they might be for kids overall? You honestly think that every single kid got the grades they deserve and there isn’t a single candidate whose results will be raising eyebrows among those who know him or her?

You don’t honestly think there isn’t someone who is truly exceptional who is pissed off because they got the same grades as someone they know isn’t actually that good?

It’s not judging the teen, it’s judging the marking.