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?

@Hercisback

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

Marsha here's a good gcse round up.

Oh this is great thanks!

Loads to read

@AngryWhompingWillow

You're clearly out of date.

Early entry and multiple exam sitting is now frowned upon, to the point that the first exam sat counts towards school progress figures. This stopped early/multiple entry overnight.

@SailYourShips

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

That's it in a nutshell.

Well yeah. This. The OP has a point IMO. There are way too many high grades. No way can all these kids be THAT^ academically smart.

As I said though, in many cases, the schools have their arses kicked if they don't have a MASSIVE amount of hugely high grades from their pupils. It's madness. No everyone s academically gifted. And that is fine!

[quote Hercisback]@AngryWhompingWillow

You're clearly out of date.

Early entry and multiple exam sitting is now frowned upon, to the point that the first exam sat counts towards school progress figures. This stopped early/multiple entry overnight.[/quote]
That is why I said MUCH of the last couple of decades. I know it has changed recently.

www.jcq.org.uk/summer-2021-arrangements/

Enjoy 😉

@CallmeHendricks - its a good question. The problem was caused by the freedom really. Some schools did mini assessments, some schools made their students sit old exam papers. The variation has caused the variation. An integral part of an exam is its parity with previous and future years.

I teach drama as my main subject and actually there is a lot of teacher assessed work. I think drama has a good system.

Once per year (in normal years) we get a visit from an external moderator who checks our practical work. From that check - none of our given marks can be higher nor lower on any of the previous or next set of assessments although they can vary for the individual child.

We do more assessments than we need and then chose the best two to go forward, giving the child the best chance of individual success whilst maintaining parity over the country.

I think there was time to revise the course criteria to be less than usual years and set standard exam questions for different parts of the course and effectively make the exams modular.

I then think that one of the modules could have been sent to the exam board for external moderation. The external moderation would have provided the parameters for the rest of the teacher assessments for the modules and provided a good standardisation guide.

Then an uploading of the module marks from the teachers would be able to be scaled in line with previous years because that is done on percentages and not mark bands.

I know what I mean although maybe it doesn't come across clearly?

Oh and then there's a bit of this we're up against now too:

If you are a teacher you assess based on work the student has done.

In a normal exam, not every student produces their best work on the day for all kinds of reasons.

So nothing has to be rigged, it’s just that teacher assessment will always tend to grade higher.

Of course the 44% aren't all equally academically able. The point is, you can't make fine distinctions when you bosh a system together at the last minute (and anything under a year's notice is last minute in education). Tbh, it was a miracle the outcome wasn't worse. The Ofqual guidance wasn't published until after some schools had broken up for Easter. They cancelled the exams in January!

So fed up of all this teacher and student bashing. These people have been doing their very best in the most difficult of circumstances. They have had to show resilience, resourcefulness, deal with their lives turned upside down, new technologies and ways of learning and GAVIN bloody WILLIAMSON possibly the worst education secretary ever. They deserve all the luck and success in the world.

Yes, and that cartoon. Parents and students are understandably highly anxious though. Last year's grade inflation has created huge issues with university places this year.

A lot of people are talking about poorer pupils doing well, etc, but didn't the attainment gap between rich and poor widen this year (and last year)? Lots of reasons for that of course, but I don't think the idea that suddenly poorer pupils did better because they were being more fairly assessed holds water.

their exams were cancelled, what more could they want?

They could want to have known at the start of the academic year how they were going to be assessed at the end of it.

They could want not to have missed large chunks of school time over the past two years.

They could want to have been able to do the homeschool work in a quiet classroom with suitable equipment rather than in a loud home, trying to look after younger siblings so that their parent can work from home, and having to do it on a phone with mobile data, or sharing one computer with three other siblings.

They could want to have been able to do practical lab work, art work, music tuition and PE coursework in person.

They could want the education which they had a reasonable expectation of at the start of year ten and thirteen.

And they could want not to have accusations of the system being rigged at the end of it.

But sure, they didn’t sit exams. Terrific.

It's why Gove changed the gcses. Kids from poorer backgrounds doing a bit too well

And girls. Particularly girls doing too well compared to middleclass boys. Couldn't be having that.

@NeverDropYourMooncup

It's why Gove changed the gcses. Kids from poorer backgrounds doing a bit too well

And girls. Particularly girls doing too well compared to middleclass boys. Couldn't be having that.

How did the changes do this?

Fairly new to all this

Hasn't worked for my daughter. Had a fab track record Pre covid but ended up with predominately 6s. Only 5 in maths which isn't good enough for her college course. Predicted 7/8/9 until covid hit. Was on track for medicine but not now.

Those of you talking about the 44% do understand that is A Levels where, generally, students are more academic to be doing them in the first place. Did you see the ofqual link above where you can see that for some subjects, the inflation is tiny.

It's not 44% of all students at the end of Y13, it's 44% of those who took A level.

@Looneytune253 She can appeal or resit. I understand she may not want to resit but this is an option.

This is the same every year. "Back in my day 50 years ago exams were ten times harder than they are now." Instead of just being pleased for the kids. It really is so predictable and pathetic.

Girls of all social economic classes and ethnicities were found to perform very well with a mixture of coursework and examinations, as did boys from lower income families and other ethnicities to some extent, as whilst they could have a bad single piece of coursework or a bad exam for whatever reason, it didn't determine their entire grade.

However, middleclass/privileged boys didn't improve their grades by as much for moot reasons - whether it was confidence, being more comfortable with a one off flurry of effort at the beginning of the Spring Term rather than consistently working to the best of their abilities throughout the 18 months of the course or whether it was because the previous system was already tailored to ensure they got the best results, you could spend years arguing about it.

Each change to the GCSEs since then has been made pretty much on the basis that white middleclass boys aren't doing as well as they used to do and girls/poorer kids/ethnic minorities are doing better. Constantly trying to move the goalposts so that the mini versions of the men in charge are better than everybody else, as it were. Taking away practical courses that concentrated upon the skills, knowledge and practical ability and changing them into massive essay writing exams, for example.

Essentially, if the boys of the private system are not getting top grades all the time, the ex boys of the private system feel the need to tinker some more to try and get the following cohorts back there.

Must admit I have given thought to this...when I was studying for my A Levels (waaaay back in the day), my teachers predicted I'd get an A. My coursework was on track for an A. But because the final mark was mostly exam based, I ended up with a C after finding out last minute one of my exams was actually a week earlier than I'd been told. I was prepared but not as prepared as I'd like to have been. And it shook me, so it affected how I performed (I'm usually pretty good in an exam situation). I'm afraid that when I saw this year's tranche of excellent exam results (I don't think I know anyone whose child didn't do well and we are talking average/below average state schools here) the thought did pass my mind that had this been the case with my A Level, I'd have maybe got that A.

But it's not easy and must have put so much pressure on already overworked teachers.

@SparklesandGold

It’s just my opinion. I’m entitled to that.

Really? Despite being completely ill informed and persuading bullshit? Not on my watch. Sarah’s work was marked blind in my school, each paper by a different teacher and all papers moderated. So Sarah didn’t get her grade because I liked her….

Perpetuating.

Can’t believe people are still blethering on about this. How joyless life must be if you are bitter enough to begrudge children the grades they worked hard for in the middle of a pandemic.
I know a fair few children who didn’t do as we as expected both in Alevels and GCSEs so I’m not sure where their inflated grades were.

Freedom of speech and all that.

Yes you do indeed have the freedom to go around spouting your ill-informed opinions, and ignoring the patient explanations from experienced people who actually know what they're talking about... as long as you are ok with the fact that it does make you sound either goady or a bit dim. Or possibly both.