Ofqual's vanishing statement and the exam continuing farce.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Last night, just hours after setting out their exams appeal process, Ofqual withdrew their statement. You can't make it up.

The orginal statement outlined what they considered a valid mock to be, whether an actual exam or other timed, invigilated piece. It also stated that if the mock grade were higher than the CAG then the CAG would stand. Thus implying that CAGs were more valid than mocks.

Now it has been withdrawn and to be replaced with what??

Universities are in an impossible situation. All of them over offer, knowing that some students won't obtain their grades. They have numbers capped by the government. They also have finite accomodation and resources and in this covid world have to try and keep students as un crowded and apart as possible.

Oxford have released a statement www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-08-15-university-statement-2020-admissions

In the mean time, we have students lives, shattered by an algorithm, with no sign that anyone knows what they are doing. They can appeal their grades apparently, but no one yet knows what an appeal will look like. So they are stuck in limbo, with term approaching, not knowing where they will be living in a month or sos time.

It's a shit show that was obvious was coming.

I don't know if it can be fixed. Even if students are now awarded their CAGS, universities won't be able to fit them all in. If they are deferred a year there will be fewer places for next year.

Longer term I personally believe that applications should happen after exam results are awarded, but that idea always meets resistance from universities because it would create a huge upheaval for the whole academic and research year. But I've felt that the current system has become increasingly untenable for a number of years.

That doesn't sort out this immediate crisis though.

Matilda this has been the case for years. Some schools and colleges over predict because they know that getting the offer is the most important part of acceptance.

OfQual know of this issue, there have been various studies on it, this is why they created this adjustment by ranking students scheme. Pushing this back at schools at this point is not a helpful way forward.

I can understand your ds thoughts beenrumbled. If he has his desired place, then living in happier ignorance is probably better. If he hasn't then he probably needs all the data he can obtain.

OYBBK, DS1 had originally planned to do an apprenticeship in accounting, then in February decided he wanted to take a year out, and apply to do Maths at Uni in 2021 - so he has a place with an organisation that does additional maths support for Secondary Schools, and planned to apply for Uni this autumn for a place next year. Now I'm worried about him getting a place as a lot will defer/retake etc.

He has just told me he read an Email from college this morning (which was sent on Friday and he had not looked at ) saying due to all the emails asking for CAG's they will be sending them to every student. So he will find out either way.

OYBBK - I know this has been the case for years (I got good offers as my school over assessed me back in the early 90s). The difference is, you still had to get the grades. And frankly, those schools which ridiculously over assessed should have this put back on them. Which in no way absolves Ofqual.

Re the point that the DfE and Ofqual currently run the exams grading systems - I'd debate that. I know for my qualification the exam is written to strict writers guidelines including demand of questions on a minute level, this goes through multiple rounds of revisions, is checked for standards on multiple levels. This gives us our expected boundaries. Then after the exams are sat there is a very in depth and lengthy process of awarding for each individual paper to ensure that the standard for each grade matches the standards in previous years. The grades are "moderated" by Ofqual and they may make minor adjustments but it's nothing like this at all. We certainly do not award grades based on blanket numbers of candidates at each one.

This algorithm is nothing, NOTHING like the existing system.

@borntobequiet

I think they thought they could easily write an algorithm that took account of ranking and CAGs, found it wasn’t so easy and fell back on ranking alone, only using CAGs where it was evident even to the meanest intelligence that those grades would be disproportionately affected. Just like they thought developing a contact tracing app would be easy, making new trade deals would be easy goes on and on and on

I'm not trying to defend Ofqual, who should have gone back to the drawing board when their own report showed the unequal impact, even if that meant delaying results, but the government announced that exams would be cancelled and Ofqual would 'come up with an algorithm from predicted grades' without consulting them first, so they didn't actually get the chance to give input on whether that was a viable approach.

Thats fair enough Matilda, on reflection I agree with you that it could one of the contributory factors. Is it one that data exists on to quantify? There must be.

There are inadvertent over predictions too, so many times a student does worse than their capability suggests. Even very reliable students have bad exams for so many reasons.

Hardback this is true too. I think that there is huge culpability at a ministerial level.

Matilda unfortunately the schools which played by the rules have also been downgraded, giving a double whammy. My DD's sixth form usually gets 3 A stars for English. My DD received almost full marks in every assessment, her coursework and her year 12 exams. Her PG was A star, which helped her secure her place at Oxford. Unfortunately 4 or 5 of them were expected to receive A stars, but the school decided that they could only give 3 of them A star as their CAG. My DD was one of the unlucky ones. In some cases, the lower CAG submitted by the school has been downgraded further, so an A star student has ended up downgraded by both the school and OFQUAL to a B or C.

What do we think will happen with GCSEs? Lord Baker is calling for them not to be released on Thursday.

DD would be devastated to not get her results.

She has an induction at college on the following Monday, and courses start the week after. I suppose colleges would just delay the start of the year?

My DS has a CAG for his EPQ (5000 word dissertation) His CAG is based on marking the actual project - no prediction needed, project is complete, handed in, assessed by school as a Grade B.

Project ranking sent through (because even though it could physically be marked elsewhere for moderation, no bugger is bothering to do this) and his has been downgraded to a C! It's bloody ridiculous as his project is there for anyone to read and mark against the mark band criteria

@OhYouBadBadKitten

What do we think will happen with GCSEs? Lord Baker is calling for them not to be released on Thursday.

I think it would be indefensible to release them given the total uncertainty over what they're doing about a-levels. I really can't understand why the release of A-level results wasn't delayed once they'd seen both the evidence of their own report that it was having a discriminatory impact and (more cynically) the uproar in Scotland, which should have made it very clear what to expect. If they let the same thing happen for GCSEs it'll be totally knowingly which seems so wrong.

I am absolutely despairing at the lack of media coverage re Btec's. The system was even more ridiculous with exam units graded entirely on national algorithm and ranking students not just in Year 13 but Y12 too. From DS's results it looks very much like the algorithm spat out an overall grade based on the ranking and then the 2 exam units which weren't sat had grades generated to fit according. He had 2 internally assessed units lower from Distinctions to Passes. I have no faith that this will be corrected on appeal but there has been no mention of changes to the appeals process for Btec's. This was after thousands of students had to wait until Friday to actually receive their results and Pearson didn't release results to uni's so students have had to send the pdf of results to uni's themselves.

Surely Ofqual signed off on all procedures by all the awarding bodies to work out grades this year so what hope is there that anything will be done if there isn't a huge amount of media attention?

The grade inflation problem isn’t necessarily the result of teachers over-predicting. These aren’t UCAS predictions. The majority will have given each student a CAG that they thought the student could be expected to achieve. But if exams were sat, on the day, some students would do unexpectedly badly - their pet died, they had hay fever, they misread a big question. But that hasn’t happened and so the overall grades are up by 12%.

Ofqual have solved this problem by randomly picking students to represent the ones who messed up on the day and got worse grades ...

I think it would be indefensible to release them given the total uncertainty over what they're doing about a-levels. I really can't understand why the release of A-level results wasn't delayed once they'd seen both the evidence of their own report that it was having a discriminatory impact and (more cynically) the uproar in Scotland, which should have made it very clear what to expect. If they let the same thing happen for GCSEs it'll be totally knowingly which seems so wrong

Completely agree Hardback

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies - yet more teacher bashing. I despair honestly.

Maybe read this point of view:

You will read a lot this week about inflated A-Level grades with teacher's predictions and how teachers have deliberately exaggerated grades for their own gain.

Think again. We haven't. Let me explain.

Let's take five members of an A-Level class who are all slated to get B grades overall. They have been progressing all through the course towards those grades and look pretty good so far.
Now let's take a NORMAL examined year. Your five sure-shot B grades go into that exam room and sit those papers. Now let's go to August and you get the following:
Students 1 and 2 get B grades as expected
Student 3 spends extra hours revising, practising and practising, manages to revise the one question that comes up and gets an A
Student 4 drops to C because they were one mark off the higher-this-year boundaries. Any other year would have been a B.
Student 5 missed either one question/one text/one case study/one equation and dropped to a low C or even a D. Yup they screwed up, either by accident/stress/personal circumstances and there's at least one every year in every class who does.

Now let's take THIS year. Your five sure-shot B grades are back again, only now you have to predict their grades. They have all been consistently working to this level.

Do you give them all B's? Of course you do because that's your evidence. Which student becomes your scapegoat? Which one do you 'assume' will be the screw up or victim of boundaries? Student 1 who had that one bad assessment? Student 2 who has bad attendance? Student 3 who works at B grade but it is really low in the band? Student 4 who has major family issues? Student 5 who is actually capable of more but doesn't revise and blags assessments? No. You don't. Because you don't let (you are also forbidden to let) bias cloud your judgement. So they all get B's sent off, including that one student who may have managed an A.

So grades will go up and be artificially high, but of course they will, it's an anomaly year. You have no data to draw your usual bell curve from (what makes a B one year may not another).

Teachers haven't exaggerated grades, instead we are working against:

• Previous years boundaries that go up and down, sometimes quite dramatically. I have had students get A's one year and C's in another with exactly the same mark.
• Not knowing what is on the paper (e.g. mine only get examined on 2 out of 3 possible topics and if one particular one comes up, some students will do better)
• Each year also brings 'bad' papers and 'good' papers - you get one bad paper/poor question/poorly worded section and that's your cohort all down - teachers have been asked to predict against this too.
• Giving students the benefit of the doubt because you know they COULD and have demonstrated in assessment that they CAN so why not give them the grade?
• Exam marking is notoriously unpredictable, inaccurate and uneven - particularly in essay based subjects even in regular years.
• Also I cannot speak for other teachers but this year's group for me have been one of the most able I have had - and having a student's personal progress judged against previous who may have been less able/more disadvantaged/more scuppered by course changes seems ridiculous.

Also, quite bluntly, predicting and ranking exam candidates for teachers has been hellish. I don't think anyone would like to be asked to rank a group of people on their POSSIBLE performance knowing that the grades they give will make or break a student's future.

And finally, students WORKED for these grades. Teachers didn't magic them out of thin air. We based them on eighteen months of evidence, assessments and grades. And every time someone declares 'oh they aren't real grades' you belittle their work and achievements.

Save your judgements for the govt who turned schools into exam factories which means it's all on one or two papers at one moment in time.

(EDIT: This example can also be applied to the upcoming GCSE results too)

EDIT 2 - Also this year's grades will not be included in schools progress/judgements and league tables so it is literally in no teacher's interest to inflate grades artificially.

Flat truth: we were asked to use a rigorous criterion based assessment system, set by Ofqual. We did. We debated, checked, analysed and sometimes wept over it. They tore it up and used a normative assessment system. It’s been absolute hell for teachers, never mind the distraught parents and students. I feel embarrassed to be part of it all right now and if we weren’t in the middle of a massive and worsening recession, it’d genuinely be my reason to check out of teaching for good. And I’m bloody good at it.

@luckylavender’s explanation^^ is very clear.

CAGs are in no way similar to UCAS predicted grades, where teachers are put under hideous pressure from students, their parents and sometimes managers to over predict. You have to be very tough sometimes to stand your ground and not give young Wotsit the predicted A that will get him an Oxbridge offer. One thing that was done well in this debacle was instructing teachers not to divulge grades to students.

[quote luckylavender]@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies - yet more teacher bashing. I despair honestly. [/quote]
I am a teacher, albeit at primary level. And the parent of a Year 13 and Year 11.

I know many (I suspect the majority) of teachers tried to be honest. But some didn’t. And they have not helped this mess.

On my school we were rigorous and have solid evidence.
We knew there were schools that would chance it -there always are.
Ofqual are not fit for purpose-they could easily have identified the chancers /they had enough time!
But useless jobsworths, they didn't bother.

.absolute nightmare for you teachers who have been and are still trying to navigate your way round this hell. You must be absolutely gutted for your students.

My dd had a grade moderated down and ds has GCSEs this week - I feel sick thinking about it

I don't blame teachers and expect a good number are upset on behalf on their students

thaines.com/post/alevels2020 makes for a very interesting read. It discusses a couple of aspects of the model that OfQual decided to use.