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Now it has been withdrawn and to be replaced with what??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

Very interesting OYBBK.

I'm watching the news and following articles/links obsessively - this is such a shit show for our kids.

Boris will want another way out - he can't be seen to follow NS.

I've recently heard (probably all over the news at the time mind you) that one of the chief statisticians at Scottish SQA resigned back in March or April over the, then proposed, method of awarding grades. And now I hear that OfQual were offered the services of another group of statisticians to help and OfQual turned that offer down.

DS1 just got his CAGs for Alevels from college - they gave him A8 Accounting, rank 1st. A* in Maths rank 20th (4 tutor groups of 25) and A in Physics rank 10th.

On Thursday his official results were AAA. College have said not to appeal at moment until we have more guidance - but we will appeal the Accounting definitely and potentially the Maths though I suspect its borderline for that - on a good day I think he would have got an A* for that , but not on a bad day.

So worried for DD and GCSEs

A* Accounting

This could be a silly question - but why weren’t the CAGs moderated externally before Ofqual got hold of them?

There is a model for this in primary assessment. Thinking of KS2 writing, we submit our teacher assessment grades for all pupils. Then the LA (as we are a LA school) will oversee all of the grades and decide which schools need to be moderated, one red flag for moderation would be a school that has had a big increase from the previous year. Not every school needs to be moderated but something like this could have picked up any issues with CAGs in individual schools (if necessary)?

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies - even more reason why you should show solidarity at this dreadful time.

Wales to use teachers predicted grades for both A levels and GCSEs, just been announced on BBC News webpage

Times is reporting that England is doing the same.

Well the head of OfQual has said he's very sorry. Of course these past few days needn't have happened, students didn't need to go through this and universities wouldn't now be tearing their hair out trying to fit in thousands of extra students at the same time as keeping them socially distanced.

This could be a silly question - but why weren’t the CAGs moderated externally before Ofqual got hold of them?
Indeed they had months to check the outliers and revise their algorithm.

It looks like Edexcel are asking schools not to issue BTEC results tomorrow.