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?

@Imapotato "Maybe some school have inflated, but I really don’t think that was the case at dds"

Oh it is definitely a shit show. It appears some schools have worked really hard assessing and moderating etc and demonstrating they are in line with previous results and trends, and some (mainly crap schools) have had sudden and unexplained massive improvements in scores which suggests their pupils respond and learn much better having no lessons or a few on MS Teams. For some, it is no favour as they can be heading for an Alevel or university course they don't have the intellect to cope with

What was the % inflation for GCSE grades this year? I can’t seem to find the figure. Was it as much as A-levels?

There's not really any such thing as percentage inflation overall. The A level percentages discussed are the grade A&A* changes. The article below is a good round up.

ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2021/08/gcse-results-2021-the-main-trends-in-grades-and-entries/

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/education-58174253.amp

Ok finally found an article that gives the figures. So GCSE inflation this year is only a couple of percent?!

That’s absolutely incredible and in which case I don’t know why OP has decided to include GCSE’s in the thread. That means secondary school teachers have pretty much got their assessments almost spot on to what a normal year of exams would be with only a small margin of error %. That’s actually really impressive.

The article also states that less than 1% of grades that awarding bodies asked for evidence for in their checks were changed. 1%! Again, just shows that 99% of grades teachers assessed were spot on. So really, GCSEs have experienced barely any inflation this year (only a couple of percent) which if anything shows how bang on 99% of teacher predictions were. Getting it that close is brilliant.

Some people on here don’t realise that I am not criticising everyone’s grades.

I’m just saying, the top grade numbers are very high and I’m sure not all of them deserve the high grades.

I am a head of department (large, core subject, heavy marking load....). Our % were absolutely in line with 2019, when students sat exams. They are excellent grades and students did well, but they have NOT been inflated.

The reason that grades are higher is that this has taken the "random" element out. If you have 5 students who you think will get a 7, in an exam 2 will get the 7, one might work really hard and get an 8, one might be a mark or two under the grade boundary and get a 6 and one will have a dreadful exam and get a 5. So 5 "certain" grade 7s become 7, 7, 8, 6, 5.

With this system, we remove the random and all 5 would be a 7.

I'm going to ignore the claims of wild unprofessionalism...

@Morgoth

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/education-58174253.amp

Ok finally found an article that gives the figures. So GCSE inflation this year is only a couple of percent?!

That’s absolutely incredible and in which case I don’t know why OP has decided to include GCSE’s in the thread. That means secondary school teachers have pretty much got their assessments almost spot on to what a normal year of exams would be with only a small margin of error %. That’s actually really impressive.

The article also states that less than 1% of grades that awarding bodies asked for evidence for in their checks were changed. 1%! Again, just shows that 99% of grades teachers assessed were spot on. So really, GCSEs have experienced barely any inflation this year (only a couple of percent) which if anything shows how bang on 99% of teacher predictions were. Getting it that close is brilliant.

This is useful

I agree it doesn’t help that op has thrown GSCE into title without looking at information

In my DDs school she was given a candidate number and was not allowed to write her name on any of her 36 formal assessments. No teacher knew who's paper they were marking - so there was no teacher bias at all. The grades she received were fair and consistent compared to the grades she had been receiving in her subjects usually. The only thing that caused real problems was the government making decisions so late about what was actually going to happen with exams this year.

@Evvyjb

I am a head of department (large, core subject, heavy marking load....). Our % were absolutely in line with 2019, when students sat exams. They are excellent grades and students did well, but they have NOT been inflated.

The reason that grades are higher is that this has taken the "random" element out. If you have 5 students who you think will get a 7, in an exam 2 will get the 7, one might work really hard and get an 8, one might be a mark or two under the grade boundary and get a 6 and one will have a dreadful exam and get a 5. So 5 "certain" grade 7s become 7, 7, 8, 6, 5.

With this system, we remove the random and all 5 would be a 7.

I'm going to ignore the claims of wild unprofessionalism...

So when you were calculating a grade for your student, how did you do it?

I’m genuinely interested. Do you just look at their classwork books and think “yeah this stuff is worth an 8 grade”

You do realise that marking and grading is part of a teachers normal job! That they spend most of their days teaching and then marking work to see how much their students have understood. I would imagine that deciding a students grades comes pretty naturally when you've been doing that every day for years. They know exactly what they're looking for - plus they have guidance to show what each student needs to acheive to warrant each grade.

My daughter had the A level fiasco last year. She is a middle of the road performer til exams where she performs well. Teachers gave C based on middle of the road, wasnt allowed to appeal based on mocks, so she sat actual exams in the autumn and gained A. Not all kids are advantaged by teacher gradings.

@SparklesandGold

Erm.... I mark their work??

More seriously, there are a combination of things:

• assessments which use past exam questions which are marked against the mark scheme and that year's grade boundaries applied
• assessments in the style of standard assessments with an averaged set of grade boundaries applied
• comparison of work to the exemplification material for each grade, provided by exam boards
• years of experience as a teacher
• years of experience as an examiner

And then ALL this evidence is put into a file, clearly marked and annotated, to show why that student got that grade. These were sampled by the exam board to check that the evidence supported the garde given.

We had NO changes. All the grades were upheld, they were clearly based on accurate evidence.

Do you just look at their classwork books and think “yeah this stuff is worth an 8 grade”

Do you think policemen superficially just look at a pile of evidence collected from a crime scene without forensically testing any of it or going through any computer files and just think “yeah this guy is not guilty”?

At my school, the grade awarded was based on 40 x end-of-unit tests taken by each student throughout their school duration (year 7 to year 11). Each tests was blind remarked and then blind peer-marked by two other teachers in the department. 40 tests taken in the classroom in reasonable exam conditions over a few years gave us a pretty solid estimate of each students ability.

I assume other teachers did similar. And clearly they proved they were bang on as the article above mentions, GCSE grades only went up by 1-2% this year which is well well within the margin of error and less than 1% of grades were changed after moderation by exam boards. So basically it sounds like teachers knew what they were doing. I’m actually in awe that they got their predictions so phenomenally close to what would happen in a GCSE normal year in exam conditions. I think it’s a testament to their professionalism and judgement.

@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?

But they still say exams, just not formal ones in an exam hall. The boards sent out assessment papers, grading examples, mark schemes, exemplar answers, guidance for grade boundaries and loads of other stuff that had to be read, digested and applied to students. Most students across the country sat more exams than they would in a normal series because teachers had to be able to evidence the grade that was given. No evidence, no grade. I had to give 3's to some students as they didn't pull their fingers out at the right time. My students don't get 3's in exams because we train them to be better than that. Which leads to my second point; it isn't grade inflation per se, teachers are far better informed of the exam board requirements and pass that onto students. We spend a huge amount of time on exam skills, different styles of teaching and then massive support of students. In direct contrast to my own A-level experience (25 years ago) where we had lectures, were expected to take notes and no guidance on exam technique. Personally we have gone too far away from this model; we have better results because teachers work a damn sight harder and students have to take less responsibility for their own learning and understanding. And btw, you really really are a goady fucker OP.

There's not much differentiation if a huge proportion of entrants receive the top grade. This will just give rise to universities/employers etc having to set their own additional exams.

@BeyondMyWits

My daughter had the A level fiasco last year. She is a middle of the road performer til exams where she performs well. Teachers gave C based on middle of the road, wasnt allowed to appeal based on mocks, so she sat actual exams in the autumn and gained A. Not all kids are advantaged by teacher gradings.

This is also a good point. Like your daughter, some kids work averagely throughout most of their school life and then pull it out of the bag and exceed all expectations on exam day. Of course a teacher can only give them a predicted grade based on the cumulative evidence of their historic school work so a student consistently producing C grade work throughout their school life, will only be predicted a C as the teacher has no way of knowing this student will perform uncharacteristically exceptionally on the final exam day.

Your daughter did absolutely the right thing by waiting to retake an actual exam as should all students who tend to do better than expected in exams. Like you said, teacher assessed grades are more favourable for students who perform well all throughout school but may lose their nerve on exam day (a large minority) than students who perform reasonably ok throughout their school life but perform very well on the final exam day when it counts (a smaller minority).

I’m genuinely interested. Do you just look at their classwork books and think “yeah this stuff is worth an 8 grade.

Yes. Down the pub. It’s a bugger getting the beer stains off the papers.

@UnicornMadeOfPinkGlitter hits the nail on the head. I am a head of department for a core subject in a large secondary school and I'm not being flippant when I say I was burned out by the process. The sheer amount of work involved was overwhelming, with the mental load and huge weight of responsibility even greater. The burden of saying this child gets a pass and this one doesn't was no easy feat. YABU.

@Sobel,

@SparklesandGold your on some kind of wind up really , did you not do too good at your own exams so want to out current kids down
Not teacher bashing yet clearly you are with the questions you have asked
Im not a teacher just one very grateful mum who knows how hard the teachers worked and who's son got the grades he deserved because he worked his arse off , sat lots of exams which he struggles with due to anxiety, he was 4/5's so not in the top but thats where he constantly works at
These very few who pull ait out the bag last minute I always wonder hiw they will fare at work, as in most jobs you can't pull it out bag last minute , you have to work consistently at a high level all day every day , formal sit down exams only don't teach kids much about life , and many are just taught how to pass an exam as opposed to actually understanding , enjoying all the subject and thats wrong .

@Sobel

I’m genuinely interested. Do you just look at their classwork books and think “yeah this stuff is worth an 8 grade.

Yes. Down the pub. It’s a bugger getting the beer stains off the papers.

Did you not just put them all up on the dartboard? Much quicker!

@Sobel That's why I drink gin and tonic when marking.

Yes with assumptions of grade inflation despite lost pandemic education. Therefore with own teachers marking their pupils homework or in school assessment - there is a generosity of seemingly blanket a* which I probably not much more than c or b equivalent historical difficult to grade a in old money exam only classifications.

It is obviously a win win all round as schools and their “super able” pupils suddenly appear to have aced the pandemic conditions or arguably the pandemic has perversely been conducive for learning despite all the complaints, frustrations and challenges which all disappeared with the charitable self declared every pupil is a quality as it’s appears like a reversed grading system where all pupils starts with 💯 and their own teachers “try” to mark them down which will suggest they are both bad teachers and their pupils are not that smart in real life non pandemic world under real mostly examination conditions. Makes a mockery of the self “grading” system as those without the ubiquitous a must have skipped school or otherwise not showed up to collect their default a* (old classification b/c) grades handouts.

What are universities and employers going to do in the view of this blanket or widespread grade inflation? They themselves used to assessed in a fairer balanced way when not all or most candidates are awarded made up top grades which is only equivalent of a b or c when they did proper education?!

The real crux of the matter is PISA. international comparable to benchmark English and UK wide grades.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.

The UK school education is benchmarked consistently behind Hong Kong, China, Macao, Singapore etc in the rankings independent of own teachers grade inflation of own work and pupil attainment.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

PISA isn't perfect either fwiw. China for eg doesn't include students with SEN. As a broad brush measure its probably OK but doesn't stand up to scrutiny when you look deeper into the methodology.

Some people on here don’t realise that I am not criticising everyone’s grades

You’re not a teacher and you clearly haven’t listened to anything any teachers posting here have tried to explain.

We’re on page 10 with several hundred posts and this is the best you can come up with:

Do you just look at their classwork books and think “yeah this stuff is worth an 8 grade

Teachers predict grades every year. Sometimes we get it wrong. Mainly we get it right.