Predicated grades for ucas applications

[CrazyMom76]

Hi all,
My DS studying in a Grammar school and aspire to do engineering. Throughout his school journey he stayed in top sets for all the subjects and got good GCSE and AS mocks results as well. But in his AS ucas exams his results have dropped badly below 70% in maths physics and chemistry although previously he has always achieved above 80%.
I just need help to understand how the teachers predict UCAS grades.
Because of bad UCAS result is it sure that his predicated grades will be bad or still teachers will give consideration to his previous performance and he still can good ucas grades. Thanks in advance

Every 6th has their own ways to predict grades, so you really need to ask them. They are very experienced at it and are usually pretty accurate.
Do be aware that just looking at the % score is no use unless you know what the grade boundaries are.

Does he know why his results have fallen? Is it because the content is hard, he hasn't yet taken on exam technique or he hasn't been working hard enough?

Have they given him predicted grades yet? My daughter argued hers, one as she was supposedly .5% off an A*, one as the mock exam didn't include her strongest element which was 35% of course marks and the other asked to resit the exam to see if it was better.

Perhaps, he could speak to his individual teachers. If it's because it's too hard or he's been lazy, show them he's willing to work his socks off, go and ask for help and do extra work. Re: exam technique, DD's worked really hard at that, RS was original being marked as a B, but she ended up handing in about six essays a week to practice, and recent ones were being marked at an A/A*.

Forgot to say, if you look at individual exam boards, they'll tell you what the grade boundaries were for subject and grade, so you'll be able to get a feel of what 70% equates to, could well be an A/A*. The teachers could well take into account the three points I raised in my previous post.

My twins felt their predicted A levsel (3 A*s) were too high and that might mean they would be offered to high requirements of university (they got 4 As at AS level which probably led to the high predictions) and ended up with what we expected AAA and AAB which thankfully were both enough to meet their offers so it didn't matter the predictions had been quite high.

My school very much under predicted by A level results which is probably why I didn't get a Durham offer, not that it has mattered in the end. I got AAB in the days before A*.

With maths our sons' school always makes the point that A level is a lot harder so unless you are very good do not do it or you will get al ow grade (although on the other hand those who are good at it do tend to do very well indeed) os it is bit of a funny subject to predict.

My sons' school had a parents;' evening specifically to discuss with each teacher ucas predictions which surprised me as the other children's schools never did and I regarded that as a private matter and decision by the teachers not to be lobbied over by parents.

A level Maths has the highest percentage of A* star grades at a level I believe. Where DDs went to school they routinely put AAA if that's what the favoured courses wanted! Or BBB if that was the level! The DC did have to be reasonably competent to get the prediction but many tachers get it wrong anyway I am surprised anyone at a uiversity takes much notice of it. After all, teachers can predict what they want. The main thing is to pick courses that really match true potential. So two aspirational, two realistic and definitely achieveable and one if all goes horribly wrong!

Do schools get penalised if they consistently predict too high? What's to stop a school from saying AAA* for a BBB student?

I know some teachers are penalised in their performance review if they over predict grades but if they think your son could get the highest grades in a years time I'm sure they will predict them

I think as my twins got the highest you can get at AS (i.e. A) the teachers probably justified A predictions but I didn't predict they would get A (and nor did they) and they didn't. Anyway it worked out all right in the end as they met their offer requirements.

I think only 16% of predicted grades for UCAS are accurate, most overpredict.

Do schools get penalised if they consistently predict too high? What's to stop a school from saying AAA for a BBB student?*

At my school, we have to review our predictions and how they matched to outcome. So if we were consistently predicting in the way you suggest, questions would be asked by SLT about why our predictions were so wrong - they would want to know what had gone wrong in our teaching, basically, that we didn't get all those A*s we'd predicted!

"What's to stop a school from saying A A A for a BBB student?"

The effect on the pupil and their life choices. Teachers really don't want to stack the pressure too high. So it shouldn't be higher than the optimistic end of realistic.

If a university offers high, based on on too-high predictions then that makes for a very unhappy year 13, and even allowing for someone with missed grades still getting a place sometimes, it's risky. Especially if what was seen as a 'safe' insurance offer is actually also on the high side

Is he doing actual AS exams or is this internal yr 12 exams? (It's not entirely clear to me from your post)

It depends on what the reason for the drop in percentage is - if it was an internal exam they might have pitched it hard , but it might be that he was struggling with some of the content.

The main thing is to pick courses that really match true potential. So two aspirational, two realistic and definitely achieveable and one if all goes horribly wrong!

Good advice, but does depend on getting a realistic idea of what his true potential is. There's plenty of choice of engineering courses at many offer levels, and some will give a 'free insurance' for the BEng if he applies for an MEng but slips a grade.

For courses that interview, then high predictions could help secure the interview for which there is stiff competition. And after all, the student might exceed themselves to meet the offer. Or another course might offer unconditional based on the high predictions?

Seems like Lotta motive to predict higher than real.
Explains why the need for separate entrance exams.

My DC’s school has a policy of only predicting 1 grade higher than they get in the summer exams. They will not deviate from this. Presumably sick of lobbying from pupils and parents about predicted grades. They get several Oxbridge offers a year.

Definitely look up grade boundaries. I gather they are pretty low in some of these subjects.

I could have written the exact same post OP !!
DS is at a SE grammar school and they have recently changed to IB only.
They are giving him ridiculously low predicted grades, most definitely pessimistic predictions.
You would think it’s in everyone’s interest to motivate the students to work hard towards the higher grades not to limit their chances to get into any decent uni. The required scores for IB are high even for middle ranked unis, never mind the ones at the top. He was always top set in Maths and Physics and they are predicting him 5 and 6 at Higher Level. Any top uni asks for 7’s and he wants to do Engineering. Apparently the strategy is to predict low grades and then the pupils who want higher need to negotiate each grade with the respective teacher. Maybe the point is to teach them not to trust the system??

Well I’m now worried!! DS2 has predicted AAAA Hadn’t really thought too hard about the negative side

There isn't really a negative side Arewedone, with those predicted grades. My seven DC to go through the system have all been given the standard offer, without exception, and I expect the youngest applying this year (although with only three subjects) will get the standard offer too.

The school will also take into account if he scored over 80% on end of topic material compared to the end of year which covers everything taught.

Best thing is to contact the school and talk to them.

For some students who underperformed we set another set of tests in September for them to improve their prediction.

@MoonLandingHopes IB predictions improve in accuracy once they've done all their IAs and other coursework. If the school has only recently switched to IB then they are naturally going to be more cautious until they've got a track record.

Let’s hope they do that. He’s just done his maths internal assessment this week, we’ll find out soon.... this is very stressful!!

To test again if they underperformed makes sense to me!

MoonLandingHopes - the Maths IB at higher is notoriously harder than the A level (hence why IB are restructuring the maths syllabus going forward) which is probably why they are predicting a 5 or 6.

See attached academic paper analysing the two sets of results... www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-eps/college/stem/Activities/stem-education-network/Understanding-the-I-B/James-Hanscombe-TMAT-Paper.pdf

@MoonLandingHopes - my ds took the IB and, as others have said, HL maths is notoriously difficult. However, we found that many universities ask for a slightly lower HL score than its A level equivalent - eg A* needed at Warwick to study maths, but 6 for HL to reflect the fact that HL is considered to be more difficult than A level maths. I agree the points required are still high and IB is a demanding programme.