GCSE) A Level results

[Newname4now]

Just seen a petition online referring to the upcoming results. States that gov have introduced a 33% reduction allowance on top of whatever formulae is being used.
Can anyone shed any light?
Are we to expect seriously harsh marking/lower results??

www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/05/18/two-and-a-half-cheers-for-ofquals-standardisation-model-just-so-long-as-schools-comply/
This explains it all and is slightly less scare-monger-y.
Had to persuade DS2 off the ceiling before he could understand that standardisation is part of every years grade allocation. Got to have their bell curves🙄🙄

I still find this worrying, hoping dd doesn't read any of this.

I have one GCSE DD who is delighted she doesn't have to sit exams as her mocks were great, her predictions are great and now she doesn't fear 'dropping the ball' on any of her 20+ exams to get the results. Good track record in her school, too, so she is quite confident those grades won't change much,.
The other A-Level DD is really behind the 8-ball in this process - she is a slow-burner, experienced a year of severe depression in Y12 and was underachieving massively, lots to catch up on during Y13 and finally began making headway after her mocks in January. One of her subjects has had poor marks from the school in public exams over the past few years, so even if she gets a good calculated grade, it is bound to be lowered by the exam boards. The others, she will be at the bottom of any grade ranking based on her performance over the past 2 years at school so again likely to be lowered. No chance to prove what she'd learnt or the progress made. Also, about 2 days before lockdown, it was confirmed that she is entitled to extra time in exams, meaning all her assessments over the past few years were taken with less time than she is entitled to. Hope she gets what she needs for her course at uni and doesn't have to redo Y13 - don't even know where she COULD redo Y13!
Sorry for the rant - the process is obviously imperfect and it's hard when one is confident and the other (for whom the grades actually matter!) is in a precarious position. Hoping if the grades are too low the school will be able to support her uni choice...

@Schmedz My daughter is in a similar situation to yours. Her best subject (she needs an A in it for uni) she should get at least an A in, but the highest mark in that subject last year at her school was a C.
Also suffers from anxiety, and had a bereavement at the time of her mocks.
So no idea what will happen to her grades. Praying her grades won’t be lowered. I don’t know if her mental health could handle redoing the year- she needs a fresh start.

Catsmother1 I don’t know what to say except I empathise and really feel for your DD.
It’s all very well that they say there will he a chance to sit exams if students aren’t happy with their grades, but there’s been no tuition or support for that learning since the end of Match. Even if they have an exam in September that’s 6 months with no teaching/essay feedback etc...
all the best to your DD.

I'm the author of the blog Flyingflamingoes refers to.

The original source of the "33% grades to be changed" petition is a report from FFT Education Datalab, ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/.../gcse-results-2020.../, who compared draft GCSE grades from 1,900 schools against 2019. This showed that all GCSEs have been over-bid.

But, as FFT point out (1) their comparison was against 2019 only and (2) the comparison was carried out before schools made their submissions, so the grades actually submitted might have been 'tempered' as a result of FFT's analysis.

This was then picked up, and 'embellished', by Will Hazell, formerly of TES, in two articles in the i, inews.co.uk/.../gcse-a-level-exams-2020-millions... and inews.co.uk/.../gcses-a-levels-students-schools..., and then copied by a number of provincial newspapers.

Will Hazell's story was embellished even more in some change.org petitions, such as www.change.org/.../boris-johnson-stop-the-33...

In that petition, the statement "The Government Department responsible for this has decided in their wisdom to reduce those grades by up to 33%" is, I believe, completely false. No "government department" would dream of saying that. If I'm wrong, and if anyone can identify the source, please let us all know.

Most importantly, Ofqual have not published the 'rules' by which "statistical standardisation" works. So no one knows whether over-bidding grades will result in lots of over-ruling and downgrading, or in Ofqual saying "this year's circumstances are very different, so whatever the schools have submitted is fine".

See also www.hepi.ac.uk/.../have-teachers-been-set-up-to.../

...oh... and one other point if I may...

"Statistical standardisation" is water-under-the-bridge. It's happening now; there's nothing anyone can do to change it. And it is possible that some people will be treated unfairly - for example, bright students in otherwise weak schools, and students in schools with small cohorts, for which the statistics are very wobbly.

But because Ofqual and the SQA haven't declared how all this will work, we don't know whether or not these unfairnesses will in fact happen. They might; they might not; we don't know, and we won't know until all the results are announced in August.

Something we do know, though, is that - as currently planned - there will be no appeal (or rather, the only appeals to be allowed are on very narrow, technical, grounds). So, if some candidates are treated unfairly, it's doubly unfair: one kick in the teeth is the unfairness of the awarded grade, followed up by a second kick of not being allowed to appeal.

So the thing we can, and should, kick up a big fuss about - now - is to get the appeals process changed, whilst there is still time, and in principle, the opportunity to change it.

This works nicely in 'both directions'. If, when we all find out in August, everything is seen to be fair, the appeals process will not be used, so it doesn't matter if it is 'more liberal'. But if the awards are not fair, a 'more liberal' appeals process will be of enormous benefit.

So let's get this fixed. For example, lobby MPs, and send evidence to Parliament's Education Select Committee's Inquiry into the Impact of Covid-19 on Education and Children's Services committees.parliament.uk/work/202/the-impact-of-covid19-on-education-and-childrens-services/.

Even better - does Marcus Radford have a brother or sister sitting an exam this year?

oops... Marcus Rashford!!! Sorry!

My understanding is that GCSEs will be based on two years’ worth of results per school, and A levels based on three. So if last year your A level child’s school achieved one A star in a subject, the year before the school got three and the year before that they got two, the average is two A stars. That is how many this school will be allowed in this subject. If this year the school genuinely expects five or six A stars then that’s just tough - two will get the grade and the others will move down. Harsh and unfair, surely.

I realise that people talk about grade boundaries moving from year to year and grades not always being as expected. But grade boundaries shift according to marks. Before there is a grade there has to be a mark, every year except 2020.

News now from ofqual is that the full range of exams will be offered in the autumn so people inhale with grades can take them

feweek.co.uk/2020/06/30/gcse-and-a-level-autumn-series-grades-to-be-based-only-on-exams-ofqual-confirms/

Flyonawalk... you might be right, on all counts - about how the process will work, and the outcome. Which is especially unfair to the very bright student in a school whose highest historic grade is a B (and there are many of those), to choose just one example (for some real stories, see some of the comments here www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/05/18/two-and-a-half-cheers-for-ofquals-standardisation-model-just-so-long-as-schools-comply/)

But you might be wrong!

Underpinning your assessment are two assumptions: (1) that the A level average is over 3 years and GCSE over 2 (with lots of complications about fractional averages and variations about the average); (2) that Ofqual will apply a "no grade inflation" policy.

The fact is that Ofqual have never specified, exactly, how the process will work. Yes, they have used words like "the standardisation model will draw on … historical outcomes for each centre … and will consider, for A level, historical data from 2017, 2018 and 2019 … and for GCSE, data from 2018 and 2019 except where there is only a single year of data from the reformed specifications." With which your inference complies. But not necessarily. What do "draw on" and "consider" actually mean?

Ofqual have been asked to make things clearer, but have persistently refused (see, for example, Ofqual's replies to their appearance at the Select Committee, committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/493/pdf/).

So it is a real muddle.

My own belief is exactly as you have described. But we might both be wrong! Agh!!!

I think it's fair that they get the opportunity of an exam series, tbh. I seriously doubt there'll be a large uptake though, mainly because most young people will have moved on with their lives by then. Not all, but most.

Hi Denisshherwood...it is straight from Ofqual that GCSE calculations use two years’ worth of data and A levels three years. This is in their Response to Consultation, published on their web page.

They did say how they will calculate grades where a school does not have two or three years of grades, but I must admit to not reading it carefully because it does not impact my own children.

A mess all round I think!

...interestingly, they took part in a Q and A on TSR about a fortnight ago, and clarified how they will ‘slice’ grades so results look like those of past years. If you google ‘Student Room A Level Calculated Grades 2020’ it should come up.

...by the way I totally agree with you about the unfairness to the outlier bright students in underperforming schools. It’s awful that they can’t be judged on their own merits and that schools this year will be locked into performance in previous years. Keep making a fuss please!

Thank you! Very helpful, much appreciated!

@sandybayley

That petition irritates me. Doesn't explain where the 33% comes from. I told someone on Facebook that they were scaremongering by sharing it. It's hugely irresponsible to worry people without evidence.

Absolutely cos now im worried!

And I don’t generally worry

I’m going to be pissed if this is even vaguely right

And I’m well a-fucking-ware that my child isn’t perfect

But she is a B student and was confident of getting at least 1 A (out of two A levels)

@RufustheRowlingReindeer - there is plenty to worry about in this world but the ridiculous claims of that petition is one you shouldn't worry about.

Thank you sandy

There is no way she will actually take the exams...she’s point blank refused 😀