predicted grades

[nixterjoe]

why does it seem gcse predicted grades are way off actual levels of achievement ....

Because however good a teacher you are you cannot predict exactly how a child will perform in exam conditions with an unseen exam paper. Nor can you predict what is going on in an examiner's mind or how the grade boundaries will fall.

Mainly because they can't guess how much work a child is going to put in. They might predict they get an 'A' but then the child might not revise and get a 'C'. Likewise they may predict a child will get a 'C' based on current levels of work but that child might do a lot of revision and get an 'A'. It's also down to performance on the day and how the grade boundaries fall.

Depends where the prediction comes from. FFT and Yellis can be a way off, especially in subjects like Drama and Music. Anything based on prior attainment can be skewed if a child is very strong in some subjects and weaker in others - say, L5 for Maths and Science but L3 in English. And within schools, some staff have different understandings of working at grades/ predictions.

We are usually there or thereabouts, but with new syllabus at the moment I am not as confident as I was in making predictions. Especially as the board will not say what the threshold for each grade is.

I have often used them as a motivator. E.g. I had one student who if predicted an a would have stopped working and not got it so I predicted him an a to make him work to prove he could get an a and it worked!

Mine are usually within a grade. How far off are you talking, and when are you talking about the prediction being made?

Predicting the future is obviously a dodgy business and guesses two years in advance about what's going to happen should be treated with caution!