The facts are these I have an academic son in a London selective school. I appreciate this will be seen as a first world problem.
His school have told me the ranking system will mean that there will be 'winners and losers', he's likely to be a loser.
Are others comfortable if a similar situation arises for their child?
He's going to get good grades, he's bright and he works hard and I realise that this is a good position to be in. This is what I have understood:
He got 9s in all the mocks bar a couple of subjects and was predicted a 9 in all subjects bar one. The 9s he got in December were not 'high 9s' on the whole but not just over the line either. Some exams went very well indeed. He surprised his teachers given his sets. We were delighted his great grade predictions showed they saw his potential, the same as his mock grades for the most part.
The mocks involved questions from past papers and were very tough.
He's in comparatively lower sets and stream than others who got similar grades and performed at this sort of level. There would be evidence to show he was achieving at 9 level but some will be at an 8 etc and it depends what is chosen re: evidence.
Some other boyswho did much worse in mocks than he did are likely to be ranked higher as the school's metrics essentially say they are brighter. Higher sets, higher expectations etc, generally although this will largely play out as unconscious bias etc.
The school have said they won't let a bright child's poor mock performance count against them, those that would have pulled it out of the bag and done more revision towards the end will also be favourably considered if bright on the metrics etc.
They, in the ranking system, I think, will say whether a 9 was secure, marginal or very secure.
Even when there is evidence that my son 'beat' other students by 20 per cent in the mocks and has worked steadily at a high level the 'brighter' children are essentially seen as having under performed and he as over performing.
Not many get a full house of 9s at our school and my son won't.
I feel that many more than usual who are deemed 'best and brightest' now will get a full house re: 9s as there can be no 'off day' tripping them up in any way or a question or two that potentially throws them off. Great, for these children.
On school's metrics they are the scholars, the best and brightest etc so all 9s will have to be awarded.
These will be the 'winners'. My son who is further down the pecking order on their metrics could end up with 7s under this system as there are only so many 9s that can be awarded. It's an unusually able year but they only look at a couple of year's worth of data as I understand it.
They have been told to award as if it was 'a really good day' for child so does that not mean that others will assume a 7 was 'really' a 6 and so on?
I realise that it's 'only GCSEs' etc and others are not in such a fortunate position. How closely do universities look at GCSE grades?