To think that the whole gcse / A level grading system is rigged

[SparklesandGold]

Just my opinion.

But isn’t it funny how GCSE and A level grades have significantly for higher ever since exams were cancelled?

I can’t help but think the whole thing is flawed. I am not teacher bashing, but come on, It’s hardly surprising to wonder if some, not all, teachers bumped their students grades up intentionally.

AIBU?

Yabu

Blame the system devised by the government, not the teachers

I’m the exams officer in a school and I know how much hard work the teachers put in to giving a fair grade to the pupils.
Endless days and evenings of anylising work and having it moderated to make sure that they were marking fairly. Also basing it on numerous tests and pieces of work.
Most schools based it on work completed in test conditions at school. There could quite Easily have been exams this year. Unless pupils were directly effected by Covid and isolating. In terms of social distancing.

Every year the press reports on grades being higher than usual. I would say this year and last year were fairer on candidates as they were able to be a true reflection of the work that they can produce rather than a snapshot on a day or two when things like nerves and anxiety can greatly effect the performance.

A levels did seem to be a lot higher, GCSEs maybe slightly. Though dds school didn’t really seem any different to usual. No one got a whole string of 9s or anything. Brightest kid got a mix of 8s and 9s. Dd got pretty much what we would have expected her to get, slightly lower than her targets two subjects, but also slightly higher in another 🤷‍♀️

Maybe some school have inflated, but I really don’t think that was the case at dds. They also tested them rigorously under exam conditions to make sure the grades they were giving were fair.

YABU. They basically say this every year. Every results day is full of people moaning about how its got easier. Let the kids have their moment. Loads of people didnt pass, and this sort of shit just makes it even more galling

Yes, you are being unreasonable.

Yabu and a goady fucker.

My son did 56 assessments under exam conditions instead of 6 in a normal exam year.

And 2 x 5000 word NEA coursework papers

Yes the grades are better- because the kids were assessed more fairly.

The DfE/govt always get twitchy when the plebs do well

It's the same EVERY - including pre covid - year and it's fucking tedious.

Yes, and there's a huge luck factor to exams even after allowing for anxiety. You can write them to minimise that, but GCSEs and A Levels aren't written that way.

So, a tiny number of top students will get top grades whatever the paper is like. A larger number will get top grades if their revision choices line up with the paper.

In a normal year, luck gives some of that second group top grades, not all. How should teachers tell the "difference" this year?

It's not intentional, but yes of course teachers have high expectations of their students, some of which are higher than reality.

@Artdecolover

Yabu and a goady fucker.

My son did 56 assessments under exam conditions instead of 6 in a normal exam year.

And 2 x 5000 word NEA coursework papers

Yes the grades are better- because the kids were assessed more fairly.

The DfE/govt always get twitchy when the plebs do well

It's the same EVERY - including pre covid - year and it's fucking tedious.

That’s your Opinion, but I really don’t think there’s a need to call me that name.

It beggars belief that almost half of all candidates received top grades.

That's it in a nutshell.

Yes, there is.

Threads like this are SO tedious and nasty. Haven't there been enough?

Kids have done so well whilst enduring the biggest interruption to education since WW2.

But whatever....it obviously makes you feel good casting aspertions on others achievements.

Sad, really.

@SailYourShips

It beggars belief that almost half of all candidates received top grades.

That's it in a nutshell.

Exactly!!

What gets me is that some students complain that they’ve had it so tough.. their exams were cancelled, what more could they want?

@SailYourShips

It beggars belief that almost half of all candidates received top grades.

That's it in a nutshell.

Again, that's what happens under a fairer assessment system. It's why Gove changed the gcses. Kids from poorer backgrounds doing a bit too well

I will accept that you are not teacher bashing and answer in that spirit. With no support from government or the exam boards, we set, standardised, marked and moderated hundreds of exams. We had to use the data from this to generate the grades. Every single grade was supported by data.
We did not get paid extra for any of this and the exam boards still got paid for all of this (this is usually their jobs).
We had to submit our grades for external scrutiny, so if we were wildly different from what was expected it would have been picked up on.
We do not get performance related pay, so there is no incentive to inflate grades. If anything it makes it difficult for future years if we were to inflate them.
So, YABU.

I think we need s new system, this year's a levy results are pretty unfair on people who sat them on previous years.

Normally, there will be some number of students who have a bad day on the day of the exam, and come out with a grade lower than expected.
This year, if Johnny had a bad day on the day of the last mock, teachers could say "yes, but all his other work has been grade A standard".

I don't see any way that you could avoid the grades being a bit higher, for this reason. Arguably, it's fairer, because it didn't all depend on one morning's work.

You might also have a bunch of candidates who might get either A or B depending on what questions happen to come up, etc. Suppose you have 10 kids you think have a 50% chance of either grade. Normally the exam makes the final decision. This time, schools have had to come up with some way of deciding from the work they've done in school, but you can probably understand if they put six down for an A and only four for a B. Hopefully the exam board moderation discouraged them from putting all ten down for an A. I don't envy teachers who had to make those decisions - it's so much easier with an exam - but not necessarily any fairer.

Explaining the better grades is really simple.

Take a normal class of 6 a level students, all of whom should get B grades, let's say.
In a normal year, one will work their socks off and get lucky with a question they've really crammed - A grade.
One will be a poor attender and a bit lazy - so stop to a D.
One will be unlucky on the day and slip
Down to a C.

This year, all were assessed by the teacher. No bias or speculation allowed by law. Assessments in class time so shorter, meaning smaller topic areas for revision. All 6 get grade B. As predicted.

Ok, just for the record, despite what the papers said, the exams weren’t cancelled.
The external exams were cancelled but students actually ended up sitting more exams than ever before. Just not ones that were set or marked by the exam boards.
I wish people would realise this.

@LadyLooLaa

I will accept that you are not teacher bashing and answer in that spirit. With no support from government or the exam boards, we set, standardised, marked and moderated hundreds of exams. We had to use the data from this to generate the grades. Every single grade was supported by data. We did not get paid extra for any of this and the exam boards still got paid for all of this (this is usually their jobs). We had to submit our grades for external scrutiny, so if we were wildly different from what was expected it would have been picked up on. We do not get performance related pay, so there is no incentive to inflate grades. If anything it makes it difficult for future years if we were to inflate them. So, YABU.

No, I’m not teacher bashing. It’s not a job I could do or would want to do so I am full of admiration for teachers.

But I kind of just thought, well, Sarah is a good person so I will give her a higher grade and I also want our schools grades to be high so I’ll give the class As and Bs

@SparklesandGold

What gets me is that some students complain that they’ve had it so tough.. their exams were cancelled, what more could they want?

Yeah...bloody kids, eh?

No teaching for months in some cases, vulnerable kids with no access to tech just left to it, the DfE and Ofqual deciding to just shrug and pass everything onto individual schools/colleges.

It's the same thing EVERY YEAR

in 2019 my son did his gcses - the right wing press bleated then about elevated grades.

So tedious and SO predictedable.

I agree OP, you'll get stick for saying it but it's a system which rewards compliant, likeable kids. They're often the cleverest. Not always.

I think what happened is that more children work better in class than under the pressure of exams and therefore class work, class assessments then the grades will be higher and the exam boards have kept the grading the same as the exams.

We are in Scotland and many of dd’s teachers are sqa assessors and are used to marking exams, her school teacher graded her work, as did the head of department and then course work was given to another neighbouring high school to grade the work. So they all had to agree for the grades to be submitted.

The exams were not cancelled.

External exams were cancelled.

Please stop perpetuating such rubbish

Every year there are kids who could have got an A but ended up with a B. All sorts of factors could be at play - illness on the day, stress, revising one specific theme in a play less than others etc. But without those factors coming in to play in an exam they will be assessed based on the potential grade they would have achieved if they got to sit their exam as standard.
I think there's also the consideration that exams probably aren't the best way of testing a huge number of kids. My brain was well suited to them so I always got good grades, but I could have been an equally smart kid who wasn't good at cramming a lot of info for a short assessment window and got lower marks than I did. Those kids have probably fared a little better this and last year.
Whatever the reasons though, they've had the toughest couple of years of learning and they deserve the grades they got.