The government’s handling of education during the pandemic

[lonelyplanet]

It is unforgivable the way education has been given so little priority over the last 18 months. Children, especially those in exam years, deserve better.

"The government's failure – indeed refusal – to make contingency plans for schools and exams in the summer of 2020 is the most “unforgiveable aspect” of its handling of education during the coronavirus pandemic.

Published ahead of the 2021 A-Level and GCSE results and based on interviews with government insiders and education experts, this report exposes how decisions were taken during the most disruptive period in children’s education since the Second World War."

The full report can be downloaded here:
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/schools-and-coronavirus

Agree. The government have been atrocious. As a teacher I feel anger towards the government and DofE . I don't think I'll ever forgive them .

Yep. Huge incompetence all the way. Dreadful. There should be consequences for ministers and civil servants alike, but there won't be.

School leaders were held back from doing their job properly, due to the sheer quantity of constantly changing legislation and guidance.

www.educ.cam.ac.uk/facultyweb_content/news/heads-reveal-overwhelming-government-guidance

In the Times this morning. How can 'exams' be fair this year?

As a school leader, I can only agree with everything in the report. Many many versions of guidance documents created and launched, often at 10pm or quietly via the DfE site. Often with as little as 24 hours notice to implement huge logistical challenges.

Implementing the teacher assessed grades this summer with days or weeks of notice affecting thousands of grades. Coming up with our own centre policy with about two weeks notice. Then 100’s and 100s of hours of additional work for staff in school.

Not to mention the massive amount of work supporting all the students at home and then back in school with woeful, woeful amounts of catch up funding. The pastoral demands have been enormous. All on top of our normal school teaching and leadership responsibilities.

It’s been extremely tough and I don’t see an end.

The idea that everything returns to normal in September with no more mitigations or changes down the pipeline seems very optimistic and given previous history, I’m expecting a full change to guidance on 31st august!

University students have also been completely abandoned. I've just finished my final year of a biology degree without stepping foot in a lab once during the last 18 months, and as a consequence have ended up paying £60,000 for a degree that is practically useless for pusuing a scientific career. Children and young people have been utterly shafted during this entire pandemic and I don't think I'll ever get over the anger or resentment i now feel.

how are they supposed to realise their ambitions when everyone has deferred for the past 2 years, leaving no places for this years upcoming year 13s?
Everyone hasn't deferred....? We had the same number of students register in our medical school for September 2020 as for 2019. There hasn't just been a fallow year!

As regards the GCSE grades in 2020 being centre-assessed: the schools that self-moderated were totally undermined by the last-minute abandonment of any moderation of centre-assessed grades and pupils at these schools disadvantaged compared to pupils at schools who submitted unmoderated grades that were then awarded without question. So a borderline pupil at a self-moderating school likely lost a grade that a pupil in a non-moderating school did not - repeat that for all the subjects and many pupils lost quite a few grades at self-moderating schools, for which there was no appeal or allowance. It was the schools' fault, but they could not foresee the shambles of August 2020 when they submitted these down-moderated grades months earlier.

@SpringheelJack

how are they supposed to realise their ambitions when everyone has deferred for the past 2 years, leaving no places for this years upcoming year 13s? Everyone hasn't deferred....? We had the same number of students register in our medical school for September 2020 as for 2019. There hasn't just been a fallow year!

So why have Exeter university paid students (this year 13 with entry in 2021) to defer to next year because they had so many deferrals from 2020? Liverpool university dentistry course only had 42 places left for 2021 entries out of over 100 available spaces due to deferrals from 2020 (and didn't tell the aspiring applicants this. the students actually though they had a chance of over 100 places not 42 - plain horrible).

Expect that pattern to be even worse for entrants in 2022.

pretty damning isn't it.

The IoG could have made clearer at the outset that there report and conclusions focus on education in England whether they know NI, Scotland and Wales even exist is a whole other question . Although to be fair they briefly reference some of the better elements in the other home nations.

And the problem was exacerbated by the A level grade inflation last summer, leading to an excess number of students achieving their offer grades. So many could defer without a decrease in the number of students attending.

@SpringheelJack

how are they supposed to realise their ambitions when everyone has deferred for the past 2 years, leaving no places for this years upcoming year 13s? Everyone hasn't deferred....? We had the same number of students register in our medical school for September 2020 as for 2019. There hasn't just been a fallow year!

The issue with medicine is larger numbers of applicants therefore more competition for places:

"A new briefing paper published by the Medical Schools Council shows that undergraduate medicine courses in the UK have attracted a record number of applications for entry in 2021. The total number of applications for medicine at UK universities for entry in 2021 is 28,690, up 20.9% compared to applications for entry in 2020.

This large number of applications consists of both increases in students applying for the first time and increases in those who are reapplying compared to previous years. The consequence of this rise in applications is that the selection criteria universities use in 2021 are likely to be stricter than those used in 2020.

Key findings from the paper include:

The number of applications received by UK medicine courses for entry in 2021 is 28,690, consisting of 24,220 new applications and 4,470 reapplications.
The percentage of reapplicants from the total number of applications is broadly consistent with figures from previous years, at 15.6%.
In any typical year, medicine is a competitive subject for which to gain entry and is heavily oversubscribed. The number of places available to study medicine is regulated by the different UK governments and strictly controlled through intake targets. There will be greater competition than usual for places in 2021 as the number of places available remains the same as in 2020 at around 9,500 places. Places for successful candidates from 2020 who were required to defer entry to 2021 may be funded by the government separately and in addition to the annual number of places available."

www.medschools.ac.uk/news/record-number-of-applicants-to-medicine-results-in-increased-competition-for-places

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/22/top-pupils-rejected-by-universities-in-a-levels-fiasco-fallout

No it is the A level unmoderated grade inflation in 2020 and deferrals in 2020 and again in 2021.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/22/top-pupils-rejected-by-universities-in-a-levels-fiasco-fallout

Sorry, posted link twice, it is the same link.

Shockingly, the universities aren't telling the applicants how bloody slim the chances of them getting a place are. They then take unforgiveable amounts of time to tell students they have no place.

Read the article. 2022 applicants will have it even worse. The problem is rolling along, gaining more students stuck in it.

No government help in expanding places. No advice for the students in year 12->13 about what to do about this, whether there is any room for them.

And evidence that this year's upcoming year 13 will have it worst of all:

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jul/31/a-level-results-top-universities-expected-to-stick-to-rigid-entry-grades

There are fewer places being offered, the offers are higher and you may not get in anywhere, and don't rely on clearing because that won't have much either.

The GCSE 2020 year have been worst affected so far and will be worst affected for the next couple of years too. The government has taken no action to help this yeargroup with these problems.

[quote boredinsuburbia]www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/22/top-pupils-rejected-by-universities-in-a-levels-fiasco-fallout

No it is the A level unmoderated grade inflation in 2020 and deferrals in 2020 and again in 2021.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/22/top-pupils-rejected-by-universities-in-a-levels-fiasco-fallout[/quote]
I'm very sure this is the case. Just maybe not for medicine, it appears, if the figures in the paper I posted are accurate.

Unfortunately the unfairness of grading this year will further advantage children from private schools who are going to get a disproportionate percentage of the high grades and more places at top universities (according to the Times article).

@boredinsuburbia

Agree. As the parent of year 12->13 child who has aspirations in the medicine/dentistry/vet field, how are they supposed to realise their ambitions when everyone has deferred for the past 2 years, leaving no places for this years upcoming year 13s? No extra places created. Just a whole yeargroup who will have no places for them.

Plus universities expect volunteering, work experience etc, but since March 2020 this has not been possible. Obviously there has been online work experience and volunteering, but how can sitting in front of a computer be the same. Will places to go the person who sat in front of a computer racking up the most online courses?

So I blame universities for also failing the older teenagers as well as the government departments responsible for universities. You can't just allow 2 years' worth of students to mass defer at the detriment of a future yeargroup without expanding places. As far as I know, only Exeter university has taken any action in this regard, and that only benefit the just-left year 13s and further disadvantages the upcoming year 13s.

This is a yeargroup whose GCSEs were decided by teachers based on a continuous assessment that the students never knew they were part of. Retrospectively grading them on performance right back to when they took their SATs aged 11, when the students were taking courses that were designed to be mostly exam-only in summer 2020 and so could responsibly believe that if they revised hard enough in spring/summer 2020 past performance was totally irrelevant. Then teachers marked them solely on their past performance without warning.

They could retake in autumn 2020 if unhappy with their marks, but at this stage it was clear they were in continuous assessment for their future A level grade already, so could not take out any time to revise for retakes.

Now every test they take is counted in teacher assessment, every word spoken in class. But the courses are still 100% exam based? So they are having the worst of all worlds.

My DC has had no summer due to catching up on 18 months of volunteering, work experience, paid work, UCAT in 6 weeks.

No contingency, no allowance, very brutal and hard teacher treatment and no benefit of the doubt in predicted grades as no-one wants to risk grade inflation.

A doomed year group.

It's not the teacher's fault though. They have been told to apply certain criteria, rank pupils, not award any grade that can't be backed up with evidence and then the whole lot got put through a ridiculous algorithm. It's not teachers being 'brutal and hard' it's the government not having a fucking clue. Our education system is based on high stakes testing and it was quite difficult to do a 180 turn to it being teacher assessed. And that is without the awful pressure from parents to award grades for which there was little evidence. I'm primary but my SIL is secondary and it's been dreadful.

@boredinsuburbia
I think you answered the question you posed to me yourself - it's grade inflation that has meant more people were accepted and so some places have been forced into bribing people to defer. But there's not much universities can do about that. You can't just make extra places for things like Medicine - there are placements and hospitals won't suddenly have space and time do deal with increased numbers of students. It's ferociously unfair for kids caught in the middle of it. It's also going to be interesting to say the least when all these kids who made it into Medical school on inflated predicted grades become doctors (or our dropout rates are going to look pretty fucking awful... One or the other.)

Unfortunately the unfairness of grading this year will further advantage children from private schools who are going to get a disproportionate percentage of the high grades and more places at top universities (according to the Times article)
Yes, and those whose parents have paid for tutors since many of the school-set papers were past papers that only teachers and schools have access to, but also tutors who are also teachers provided these to their tutees. Very unfair on state school pupils without private tutors.

Will read with interest. Williamson and the DfE have been appalling from the outset.

Where is the catch up promised by Johnson? Absolutely nothing been offered to my DC.

If they make me home school again this winter I shall personally storm Downing Street, leave my DC on the doorstep and they can bloody well do it while I do my job!

[quote SpringheelJack]@boredinsuburbia
I think you answered the question you posed to me yourself - it's grade inflation that has meant more people were accepted and so some places have been forced into bribing people to defer. But there's not much universities can do about that. You can't just make extra places for things like Medicine - there are placements and hospitals won't suddenly have space and time do deal with increased numbers of students. It's ferociously unfair for kids caught in the middle of it. It's also going to be interesting to say the least when all these kids who made it into Medical school on inflated predicted grades become doctors (or our dropout rates are going to look pretty fucking awful... One or the other.)[/quote]
And for 2021 applicants for 2022 entrance - will the places go to those who took the most online MOOC courses and paid for the most online work experience, given the total lack of real-life healthcare work experience available since March 2020? That will also be interesting - the universities will end up with a small amount of keyboard wizards who had a lot of time on their hands to take courses and money for paid virtual work experience. That is no way to select the best hands-on doctor, dentist or vet.

Myothercarisalsoshit you are right teachers are not to blame in all this. They were given an impossible job this year to grade pupils fairly with very little warning, guidance or moderation between schools. I'd be very interested to know how many schools had their grades questioned after being asked to submit evidence.

And...there's still no plan for next year!
The most shocking bit is the suggestion they were told to not make a plan B for this year and it's going to be as bad next year. The class of 2022 missed their GCSEs and there's no plan b for their exams. And likely to be little to no reduction in course content despite wide spread disruption.
The DfE is a mess and the Secretary of State hasn't even been involved in some of the important decisions!

Or whose parents can pay thousands for summer schools that almost guarantee entry to their associated university. Those pupils will be the ones getting the places. The pandemic has meant that rich pupils whose parents will pay will be the ones getting the much reduced number of places available (not taking account of the widened access programmes that help the most disadvantaged, but that still leaves the lower-mid middle classes without thousands for summer school without places).
Just as well the UK policy for medicine and dentistry is to recruit mostly from abroad from countries that do train enough people.