‘What does the dramatic fall in GCSE grades tell us? That private schools were gaming the system’

[Bougiebliss]

Carrying on from the A level grades thread
this article was in the Guardian this afternoon, same in Telegraph but I don’t have a token.
it seems like GCSE inflation was more pronounced even than A levels in private school. Maybe some teachers can explain what happened and the difficulties - i did learn lots on the other thread but still left with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole business.

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/25/gcse-grades-private-schools-inflate-

Oh please stop with the 'private schools are businesses' thing. The majority are charities. Now, I know that causes all sorts of controversy in itself, but most schools are not businesses - they don't have shareholders and they don't make profits. That is a massively important difference. Of course they've got to think about their budgets - but so do state schools! If you actually talk to people who work in the private sector, you realise that the large majority are overwhelmingly concerned with the education of their students - just like in state schools. Yes, the figures might be bigger, the facilities might be plusher, the parent events might be fancier, but at the end of the day they are still fundamentally schools.

@adderadderankerchief They have CUSTOMERS. Often extremely demanding ones - as I know only too well! If they don't make them happy, they leave.
In my mind that makes them a business.

@Bougiebliss the famous public schools/ high flying day schools don’t need to appease parents. If a family walks, there are 10 clamouring to take their place.

@EmpressoftheMundane believe me when I say they have to appease their international customers. I have real lived experience of this! Without them many of their business models would crumble.

There's a lot of that going on in all types of school nowadays. Although withdrawal of actual £££ is obviously a more direct threat, but any type of school can be sued (remember St Olaf's?)

British society has become extremely anxious and competitive and collectively we've lost sight of the purpose of education. It's not about bloody grades!

Yes, and the way they get 'customers' is by running fantastic schools. I also have real experience of this. Why do you think international high flyers are paying tens of thousands of pounds to send their children to British schools? It's because they want a fantastic education. Which they could easily get in Monaco, or Switzerland, or the US, or Germany, or wherever. Schools 'appease' their customers by providing that. And as the PP said, there are ten more 'customers' ready to fill that place if they don't like it.

But also, let's not forget that state schools also need 'customers'. OK, they're not paying themselves - but if the school doesn't get the numbers, it doesn't get the funding. State schools also have to think about how they position themselves to parents in order to get bums on seats.

Yes, and some state schools that are beating applicants off with a stick, so to speak, at 11, are in a much more competitive situation come sixth form...

Yes, and that's particularly true of the grammars. Even if you're oversubscribed, you still want the best and brightest students. There's a lot of marketing going on in the state sector, at sixth form but also at 11+, and not just in the grammars.

If I have faith it is that those schools who got overinflated results followed the rules, because the rules were written in such a way as to insure overinflated results, that is not the schools fault.
Or are you saying that schools should not have followed the rules?

So the awarding bodies did the sampling that was required by Ofqual.

If that sampling, then that is a problem to be direct to the Secretary of State who signed off those rules, not the schools, awarding bodies or Ofqual.

I don't think the sampling was sufficient. That's why the issue of grade inflation is only showing up later!

I don't get why posters are so defensive. Certain private schools have evidently gamed the system unfairly. If your child was at a private school that didn't you should be even more annoyed than state school pupils because your child's results may now be tainted by the idea that private schools cheated.

The issue is that, when anyone calls out a private school, it is sometimes implied and sometimes taken as a slur on the whole sector as the topic is such a political one. It wasn't just private schools gaming the sector but there were some spectacular examples from within such as NLC. However there are grammars and comps on the list too. It is not true that all private schools gamed the sector and there seem to have been many that did not take advantage of the looseness of the guidance. However, it is not helpful when some of the highest profile schools are acting so secretively about their actual results this year.