A level results day 2021 support thread

[Mrs08]

Hi 👋
I thought it might be nice to have a support thread for us parents? (Can't see one in further Ed yet??)
It's been such a difficult time for our kids - and for us! - but the end is in sight!
Ds will get an e mail at 8.30am (apparently) and can go into college in person if he needs help/advice.
Good luck everyone!
X

Just as an aside, stage one appeals are made to the school and carried out by the school. A stage 2 appeal is carried out by the awarding body (exam board). Schools are not “marking their own work”. But the exam board will only change a grade if one of the following three things are true. Either the school did not follow their own policy, the exam board made an administrative error in processing the result or the judgement made by the school as not a reasonable interpretation of the evidence.

I've just discovered my DS never picked up his English gcse resit certificate. He will need it for enrolment and school is closed. I will phone tomorrow and see if there is anyone in the office but unlikely for exam officer to be in. What else can I do?

@Dragonfly101
I expect the exams officer will be in, due to being available for appeals.

[quote cutlerycollector]@Dragonfly101
I expect the exams officer will be in, due to being available for appeals. [/quote]
Thanks. I really hope so.

@MadameMinimes Its completely outrageous how they can differ from school to school and therefore disadvantage the child. Its very unfair that they have created an unlevel playing field for our A 'Level students. Apparently the GCSE grading policy was the same as other schools so why make it so hard and disadvantage the A 'Level students? Completely unfair and I just don't understand why the school would do such an awful thing and make it impossible for anyone to challenge it?

There was no standard agreed policy for either GCSE or A Level that all schools used. Every school had to develop their own policy. No school will have set out to disadvantage their students. Everyone was just trying to come up with something practical, that they felt would generate the strongest possible evidence so that it couldn’t then be moderated down by the exam boards. The inconsistency is totally the fault of the government and not schools. The school will have been trying to create strong, high-control evidence (which JCQ guidance said was better) and had no way of knowing that other schools would do things differently.
They also have not made it impossible for people to challenge it. There is a process by which it can be challenged, which schools were not responsible for creating. It just that, based on what you’ve said, this doesn’t fall under one of the reasons that a grade would be changed. You are questioning the schools policy, which was already signed off by an exam board as appropriate before the grades were submitted. It’s crap, but it is what it is and not the fault of the school.

I would agree with a lot of your points but I still maintain that it’s not been a level playing field hence the massive “grade inflation” that has arisen this year in a lot of cases. We are on the opposite end of the spectrum being awarded lower than predicted grades due to an exam based grading system (which was what the government said was unfair and wouldn’t happen) and no other evidence taken into account. We feel completely let down by the system and policies and have no grounds for appeal as they have also decided these too! It’s a no win situation for us so I do hope the school are happy and content with what they have done as all we feel is the upset this has caused our child and the uncertainty for the next chapter.

The system was set up to be fair though, in that each school could decide how best to grade, based upon the students experience over the last year. This makes sense. Some schools had no disruption, some kids were off multiple times, others not at all. Some finished the curriculum, some only managed half. Good or bad on-line provision. Mocks or no mocks. All schools had access to papers before hand, and each was very focused in nature, meaning the DC's didn't have to cover the entire curriculum.

Grades had to be based on the "cohort". If you produced an essay, then you had to have the majority of the students do that same essay in order to grade and give evidence against the whole cohort. If over the year very few students managed to do essays, then perhaps the school couldn't use those, and therefore chose to do exams only?

Predicted grades are also always a minefield. Is it 20% over estimated? I don't think any mock grade can be reasonably used to predict a year end outcome.

I suppose at the end of the day, as Madame says, you have to trust that your school has done the best for the students, in the only manner that they could have done with all circumstances taken into consideration.

I'm afraid I've lost all faith in DDs teachers and the system after the last week. Not a grade below an A in two years, a comfortable A in the March mocks and 92% and 90% in the final two exams in May. Never a suggestion or worry that DD wouldn't receive at least an A. Given a grade B.

Firm and insurance choices lost and we are now in no man's land with an absolutely devastated daughter who feels stupid.

School was empty on results day and our only "support" from them was to email them to arrange a telephone call which never came. Very hard not to feel bitter towards them. And now we're on stage 2 of an appeals process which is designed to fall in favour with the school.

@MaddieElla Yours is one of the rare cases where, actually, I think you have a fair chance of success. If a student has achieved A-A grades in every assessment and test for two years then I’m not sure that a B grade is “reasonable” based on the evidence. Which subject is it? In mine 90%+ would be a very high A. The cut off for A* grades normally falls around the 75-80% mark for my students. I’m surprised that the stage one appeal didn’t find a clerical error. Did they give any more information about why they gave that grade when they responded to the stage one appeal?

Thank you @MadameMinimes it really has blindsided us and I will never forget the look on her face. She didn't aspire to get an A, she had them all along. She was even quietly confident she might get an A*. The subject was chemistry, and yes, that's the road we've taken on appeal, that the grade isn't reasonable.

At the stage 1 appeal they said that they had taken a holistic approach to grading as there were no grade boundaries, and that's when they confirmed her final two exam scores. That's it, one paragraph saying that their grade was correct and no error made.

I would imagine that they have ranked her mocks and final exams with others in her year, but her chemistry teacher told her that only one person had scored higher than her in her last two tests.

Her mock A was based on last year's grade boundaries, which DD realises is just a guide but pointed out in the appeal that moderation surely wouldn't have brought her score down to a B. And the school have confirmed that more weighting was given to the final two exams - so it just doesn't make any sense.

It is utterly baffling to me that a school wouldn’t be looking to give the best possible grade based on the evidence. I wish you and your DD luck with the appeal. It sounds very stressful indeed.

We had similar with Chemistry last year... teacher awarded C, all mocks were A (she excels in exam conditions). Hit our heads against the brick wall a few times, but Dd just took the exam in October in the end, got her A.

Going to uni this year feeling confident that she is up to the challenge.

Thank you for the good luck wishes, we will need them.

Beyond, I am so glad your DD picked herself up and got that A that she was capable of. That's the most distressing part of it; that you know they deserved it but end up feeling a failure. DD thinks she had ideas above her station but it is so far from the truth.

I hope she does decide to resit, but at the moment she feels it's futile as how can she get 2 x 90+% and not get an A. She can't do much better than that.

It will all work out in the end as it did with your DD, I am just trying to parent her as best I can at the minute.

@MaddieElla I totally sympathise with you as I will not forget the look either, it was completely stomach churning as a parent to have to try and explain why this has happened when so many others have had their grades so completely inflated its mind boggling - we know of one ourselves who has been awarded A* in a subject that was at best due a C so has gone through the "adjustment" for Unit, whereas we sit in clearing ......

I do hesitate to dismiss other people's success, some deserved those grades and I don't want to come across as though they don't. But yes, when you read the headlines about the massive increase in top grades it really does add to the bitterness.

And yes if you know of a C to A* jump then that is particularly jarring.

A lot of the grade inflation was at private schools.

This is not me being bitter, but the stars on this were in the paper

Anecdotally I don’t know a single state school kid who got higher than expected grades

@MarleneDietrichsSmile

A lot of the grade inflation was at private schools.

This is not me being bitter, but the stars on this were in the paper

Anecdotally I don’t know a single state school kid who got higher than expected grades

State schools also had a big increase in As and A*s

I have to say that I would disagree that with CCAABC in assessments that a C could be a reasonable outcome. I'd have thought you'd average them out and it would be a B. I suppose if they came in that order and the C was for the last piece of work you might think it reasonable but with two As there too? I think a B is the reasonable outcome in that instance. Whether the exam board would agree with me...and given all the media flak about grade inflation...it's really rubbish.

Not all independent schools handed out top grades willy nilly.

Many of my children’s friends got Ds, or lower, at A level and 3/4s at gcse. (I might add they are not at a selective independent!)

That’s not to say we haven’t noticed inconsistencies amongst friends at other independent and also state schools. What we have noticed is an immediate rejection of stage 1 challenges to results. I really do think it’ll be nigh on impossible to challenge these results.

What wasn’t fair was the ability for schools/colleges to devise their own way of deciding grades -there should have been a uniform procedure.

That’s the Williamson’s fault.

Hopefully they don’t f* it up for next year’s GCSE/A level pupils. Not holding my breath…

The immediate rejection of stage 1 appeals is because schools were allowed to run stage 1 appeals before results day. For example, we ran stage 1 appeals for every student who had a chance of being rejected from their firm choice university before term ended and teachers went on holiday. That way, if we had any priority appeals on the day we could respond and move them onto stage 2 immediately on results day. If we’d found any errors in any of the stage 1 appeals we would have been able to try to fix them before results day and save the kids the hassle and stress. It isn’t that we are being dismissive of appeals, the opposite in fact.

Well, that’s opaquely clear then 🙄
We’re ok here -into first choice.
However, if you weren’t, you’re now telling us that this first step was already decided -so why have it?
Absolutely floored by your logic

For example, we ran stage 1 appeals for every student who had a chance of being rejected from their firm choice university before term ended and teachers went on holiday

How did they know what you were predicting?

It wasn’t already decided. We checked all of the grades for every student that we thought might appeal before the holidays. That way if we found any errors we could sort them out before they were rejected by their university. If we didn’t find any errors our end then we could tell them that straight away if they appealed, so that they could move on immediately to the stage 2 appeal to the exam board. By doing that it meant that anyone who needed a priority appeal could go to stage 2 as quickly as possible rather than waiting for us to do our clerical checks while their university place hung in the balance. Pretty much every school around here did the same thing.