GCSES re: grade allocation, is this fair?

[SeafrontBingo]

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?

@duletty

Your Child can sit the actual exam this autumn if not happy with grade if they think they or you do, that they can achieve higher. It’s fine, high mocks, low scores in summer results , sit the exams in autumn and you get the award that you feel is right...what is the anxiety over this, I don’t get it? Your child has Extra time, 6 months?? To study for exams

It's not looking likely that Autumn exams will happen. So they can sit them summer 21, about 15months after their last class in the subject. It's not likely to happen (except for English/Maths).

If exam results aren’t going to be published this year, don’t you think this is so they can allow for some secret % grade inflation to edge grades up and give as many students as possible the benefit of the doubt?

A teacher friend of mine remarked that they had been told to look for as much evidence as possible to support the highest grades defendable.

I'm with other posters in thinking that you seem to be a bit over-involved in this. Does it really matter if he gets an 8 instead of a 9 in some subjects? None of us can actually say what our children would have got if they'd done the exams - they might have had terrible hay fever, a bad night's sleep, not got the questions they'd wanted etc.

DS is also at an academic London school (90% + 7, 8, 9s). I suspect he'll broadly get given what he'd have got, maybe better in some subjects, worse in others. And apart from those who are on the border of a pass, does it really matter?

And in contrast to you, I really don't know what he's predicted nor have I had any conversations about it with teachers/head.

We also got given predicted grades & a meeting with head on all this but agree re: moving on. It’s beyond anyone’s control now and doesn’t matter really matter for most part on GCSE.

OP - most people think the ones who lose out will be the clever ones who did not bother to work for the mocks, but would have pulled their finger out for the real thing so your DS may be OK. We had someone as DS1's school who sounds a bit like your son - he was not in the G&T cohort, but was a diligent late developer who got the best results among the boys in the (large comp) school at GCSE and was in the top few at A level.

Why have a couple of people said they don't think the autumn exams will happen? The last consultation said that the current plan is to have them in November for all subjects (subject to confirmation).

I agree with some of the other posters that GCSEs are not really a big deal for most university subjects, particularly when you are comparing grade 8 with grade 9 where almost no universities differentiate (maybe Cardiff and QUB for medicine). I think that the results will be more generous than usual this year (there are A LOT of mumsnet posters saying their DCs are in particularly strong cohorts) and that the universities will view them with caution and those which have previously given high weighting to GCSEs in their admissions process may change for 2022.

Last time we had predictions my DS was predicted all 8/9 apart from 7 for Eng Lit. As long as he gets at least 7+ for everything and 8/9 for his A level subjects, he will be happy to accept them and move on and think that the loss of a few 9s which he might have got were compensated for by the most relaxing summer ever! He would sit the autumn exams for his A level subjects if he doesn't get 8/9, but as he would still be studying them, that would be manageable. It is really unlikely that he would sit other subjects even if he gets 2 grades below predictions. Interestingly, it seems that only people considering taking the November exams are those who need to re-sit to pass English/Maths or missed out on the 8/9 they wanted, so it will be a very odd cohort, almost impossible to moderate accurately.

It is SO much worse for the Y13s. University places really do depend on the teacher assessed grades. I think the worst thing for our lot is that they have missed out on the rigour of a summer preparing for their first set of external exams, so A levels will be the first experience they have of real exams. DS said he hoped they might get to do some AS levels if teaching works out OK in the first half of next year.

I don't know why NoHardSell you say that the Autumn exams don't look as they are going ahead. In the Select Committee which was televised yesterday Sally Collier the Head of Ofqual indicated that there was still the expectation that ALL subjects would be offered but obviously if no subscribers to certain subjects those would not go ahead.

As regards the Most Secure, Secure and Least Secure this is a method that some schools are using initially especially with larger cohorts to enable them to assist the ranking process. This is not submitted to exam boards. So in a large cohort like some of the huge 6th Forms if say 90 would get a grade 9, they may say these 40 are a Most Secure, the next 20 are a Secure but this 30 are a Least Secure. This aids them to rank those in most secure as 1-40, then 41-60, then 61-90.

My own DS is in year 13. He like the Op's son was in lower sets for Maths and Science at GCSE in a super selective school. He achieved 9 for Maths, 9 for Biology, 9 for Chemistry and 8 for Physics. His teachers had to submit estimated grades for two of his 9s as that board requires these. I have subsequently found out via teachers who said he outperformed what they expected of him because he was lower sets as they had submitted 7s. I suspect he would very much have been a loser in this system at gcses. So I understand entirely where you are coming from.

Fortunately his A levels are subjects where he has always been higher end of the cohort and I think at A level the difference is more noticeable and the teachers know them far better.

Remember when the standardisation is done it is not purely on school's prior results but also on prior attainment of the cohort (although not the individual). so if it is a "clever year" there is leeway for the grades to be higher than previous years.

Further, I would remind you that one of the things Sally Collier, Head of Ofqual stated to the Select Committee was that there would be winners and losers both at school level and individual level.

Finally (and sorry as I suspect this may have been longer than I expected) she did say that the grading this year would need to be robust as it needed to be fair not just to this year's kids but to those who already took their exams in prior years but also fair to those who will be taking theirs in years to come.

I hope that helps, OP. I would wait to see what happens. If the grades are markedly lower than you/DS expects there will be the chance to take an exam and he would be able to use the higher of the calculated grade/exam grade for any applications to 6th Form, Uni or future jobs.

Monkey - I was still typing as your post went up so I have said similar in places.

To posters saying why has she spoken to people at school about the grades it is quite usual in some schools to have a catch up meeting after mocks results. Just because it doesn't happen at yours does not make the OP overinvested nor does it mean the school has breached the guidelines regarding gradings if this occurred prior to the guidelines. Indeed the reason OP is worried is because she can't have these types of conversations with them.

I don't know why NoHardSell you say that the Autumn exams don't look as they are going ahead. In the Select Committee which was televised yesterday Sally Collier the Head of Ofqual indicated that there was still the expectation that ALL subjects would be offered but obviously if no subscribers to certain subjects those would not go ahead.

Translation: exam boards decide, not ofqual. When they don't offer any beyond English and Maths, we will pass it off as being due to lack of subscribers (which it kind of will be, but not due to no subscribers, just not enough to make it worthwhile)

That statement goes in the same pile as all the others about what 'will' happen that turns out not to

Tbh as well, that's assuming they can go ahead

Mid second wave?

Maybe

We might have chilled out a bit about it by then, but going on how people still are? That's a big maybe.

To posters saying why has she spoken to people at school about the grades it is quite usual in some schools to have a catch up meeting after mocks results
With the Head? Maybe a private school thing. State schools might have parents' eve after mocks but not an individual meeting with the Head as a matter of course.

As a teacher, I've had to juggle ranking my students. It's a huge burden. It's difficult to be 100% fair. My understanding is that evidence needs to be strong to support the awarded grades, it can't just be done to suit the school. If your son achieved a 9 in the mock and is predicted a 9, this will be in his favour. I don't see how the school can say a top set kid who got a 7 in the mock should get a 9 while your son gets a 7? What was his typical class grade? In my school, we rank students in each class but then put them together as a whole year group to see how they fit. We've got set 3 kids outperforming set 1 kids, based on mock and class data, and the ranking reflects this. Just because a kid is in a higher set doesn't automatically mean they'll get higher grades.

This article seems to be saying there will be appeals. I thought there weren't going to be! www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-ofqual-considers-appeals-helpline-gcse-grades

The last thing said that schools could appeal on process, so presumably if a mistake is made by school or board, maybe the historical cohort data wrong?

..... but that article implies that individuals will be able to appeal. Strange!

The whole year group in the school has to be put into one rank order per subject. Depending on whatever logic the school uses (include SATs, CATs, mocks, etc.) this should overall be fair to the tune of 1 or 2 grades, but like the OP says, there are winners and losers.

If OPs son is, for whatever reason, ranked as a low 9 he will be more likely to get an 8, whereas somebody ranked as a high 9 will be more likely to actually get the 9.

I think overall the system seems fair, but if you are at the very top end or on the boundary between a pass / fail it can end up feeling quite unfair.

Having said that, although a full house of 9s is nice to have, an 8 is still a great result and will not be a hindrance when applying to university, especially under these circumstances.

If students do feel unfairly punished they can always resit in the autumn, although the autumn exams might be skewed towards people resitting in order to get a pass and those wanting to get their 9s.

I can’t see autumn exams happening? Except maybe Eng & Maths? Are plans in place?

I think everyone is too hung up on the grades. The grades for this year’s GCSE cohort won’t have the credibility that previous years have had. As long as his grades are reasonable, I think you would be wise to move on and put your efforts towards the future. A levels will be even more important than usual for this cohort. Don’t waste time worrying over an 8 or even a 7 when you really think he deserved a 9. You risk distracting yourself and him from what really matters and needs your full attention.

I see what you're thinking. And you are right there will be winners and losers.

However, there is scope to have any form of malpractice investigated.

So if you got results that didn't reflect fairly accurately achievement over the past 2 years you have rights. I'm not sure it's appeal because there's nothing to re mark but you can question it.

It wouldn't do the school any favour to give a proportion of students a lower grade to reflect set over achievement because then they'd open themselves up of a large group challenge it.

My ds also got way above his predicted grades for his mocks.
I know he got the top science grade for his year group because his science teacher was amazed and surprised really proud of him because he was predicted a 7 but told he should aim for an 8. He stormed a 9 in his mock.

@TartanTexan There is currently a consultation re. autumn resits.
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-an-additional-gcse-as-and-a-level-exam-series-in-autumn-2020

Sorry, the consultation just closed!

If you're concerned about this year's process for determining GCSE, AS and A level grades, take a look at

www.crowdjustice.com/case/challenge-ofqual/

and also

www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/05/18/two-and-a-half-cheers-for-ofquals-standardisation-model-just-so-long-as-schools-comply/

The key issue discussed here is the plight of the bright student in a school with a weak track record, and the likelihood that the student's grade will be pulled down by the school's history.