University 2020 :6: The one with the results at the end

[MillicentMartha]

Hopefully as the title suggests we will actually get up to results on this thread! Only 5 weeks to go.

Old thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3918392-University-2020-5-Results-day-approaching-and-beyond?pg=40

@Monkey2001 they can individually appeal in Scotland though. And my disquiet is that the schools that haven't traditionally performed well with be the ones that get downgraded. And that is not fair on the students who have worked their backsides off to over achieve. Yes they can appeal but that will be no consolation on Thursday when UCAS says no. But little Johnny at Eton who has sat on his hands and done v little work will be upgraded just because he has v rich parents. This is my problem with this method. It's already happened in Scotland. Why can't they just let the kids get their CAGs this year ? Who cares if they are over inflated by 12% - they will always be the COVID year anyway. The kids have been through so much letting them get the grades seems a small price to play. I'm sure Unis have enough space for them this year. All this is so so cruel.

I see what you’re saying mums, but teacher predictions are always on the optimistic side. It happens every year that students don’t get the grades they were predicted. Also, unis significantly over-offer every year, in the knowledge that a good proportion won’t get the grades. Having 2 years work, 100% assessed on a single exam isn’t a perfect system either.

As Monkey says, the results this year will be probably the best ever. As always, there will be some anomalies, but even then, chances are unis will use their discretion and be flexible (particularly in the cases if those in low- performing schools). Plus, there are the Autumn exams anyway which is a “second chance” for this years students that has never happened before.

If there is an “outlier” student in a very low performing school, presumably they would have also done well at GCSE. These students exist in every school up and down the country and I’m sure the last thing the Dof E would want to do is penalise an “outlier” student. It should be obvious that if teachers in a school are generally predicting Cs and DS, but suddenly there’s one in the cohort who is predicted As, there will be reasons for this. They can look at GCSE results as evidence of the trajectory of outliers if they need to?

So the reason CAG grades were not awarded was to prevent grade inflation of 10%. Fine. And this year there may be a slight increase - let’s say 1-2%. Fine. But the resits in October effectively rewrite the June results don’t they? Anyone getting an A Star won’t resit obviously, so only those who slightly miss their grade will. Presumably some kids will do better in October, and if over 10% do then overall, at the end of the October resits, there will have been 2020 grade inflation of at least 10%. They might as well scrap the October resits and award CAG - they will end up with the same 2020 grade inflation. Plus, for the October resits, won’t it be easier to get a 9 or A star because anyone with a previous 9 or A star is not going to be retaking?

We are waiting for both A levels and GCSEs and are ignoring all the noise around this. Come next Thursday (and the following Thursday for GCSE) we will spring into action if necessary. DS1 is playing it cool, his firm is in clearing, so if he marginally misses the grades he should be fine. DD’s going to her school’s 6th form and they have already stated that progression will be based on the higher of CAG or actual, which was a great comfort to her.

Has anyone else been shopping for congratulations cards? Exam specific ones are thin on the ground and also felt inappropriate - you did your best etc. I bought generic congrats ones instead.

I don’t believe in them getting a ‘free pass’ this year. It would devalue the qualification. Obviously that’s just my opinion and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I think that Ofqual have worked hard at making this as fair as possible and they have tried to err on the generous side, with grades being slightly higher this year. No system is perfect, exams don’t always work out for every student, either. They had to moderate, as it really wouldn’t have been fair to simply use the CAGs when it’s obvious some schools have been overly generous. That would have been unfair to those in schools who had been more realistic.

Personally, I think my DS would have done better in the exams as he had just settled into doing some heavy revision but I’m hoping he’ll get his university place, and if not, Clearing will be a good option, especially this year. A levels are just a stepping stone on to the next stage of life.

@mumsneedwine I don't know how they are managing it in Scotland, but if a teacher ranked:
AAAAAABBBBCCCCCCDDE
and they were converted to
A*AAABBBBCCCCCCDDDEE
and 6th ranked person appealed the downgrade from A to B successfully, surely the 5th person has to go up too? And it undermines the moderation of that subject cohort at that centre. It is better if the school appeals the grades with evidence of an able cohort which appears to be what OQFUAL are now permitting.

Money makes appeals easier every year so "sharp elbowed" parents as Robert Halfon described them in the Select Committee report have given their children a head start in so many ways and also give them an advantage with exam results. Up to about 4 years ago private schools routinely advised all parents whose DC had not got top grades to appeal as they might go up and could not go down, at least that has stopped now that grades can go down as well as up.

I think people's perceptions of the method does depend a lot on the type of school your children attend. I am also a teacher and did CAGs for my students and I was fair, and did probably give a 5 rather than a 4 if I wasn't sure. But who cares ? I'm not sure how that devalues a qualification that no one has sat. Kids at 'bad' schools are going to be disadvantaged as has happened in Scotland. To me this is v v wrong.
My own DD attends a nice leafy comp with traditionally great results but I still worry for her as this is out of her hands. She was predicted 3 A* and has never got less than A in anything, so should be fine. But having spent 3 years doing loads of work experience, endless supplementary forms and interviews she has fought so hard to get offers for vet med. it just seems so rough that her future depends on a computer algorithm and not her hard work.

No one is going to be ready to sit exams in October after 6 months of no teaching. And I don't know any state school who will have time to give help. Appeals cost money so who is paying for that ? Schools have no spare cash. And why should the poorer kids have to resist when the richer ones won't ? I feel like this has not been thought through enough as to how it disproportionately affects the less rich.

@mumsneedwine we don't know whether the poorer kids will be disadvantaged as a group. Clearly they will have less access to redress and it is more difficult to get their grades right. Schools with consistently high results will get what they always get, the complications come for the schools with variable results but remember that the grades will be higher than usual and there will be more winners than losers. Particularly after the select committee directives, OFQUAL will have to look hard at schools with disadvantaged students.

It is not necessarily wrong that more students from poor performing schools were downgraded, there is more uncertainty around their predictions. If a grammar school gets 95% 7-9 and B-A* every year, they are much easier to moderate reliably. What worries me is the individual students who get downgraded for all their subjects instead of around half their subjects.

I completely agree with you mumsneedwine, on top of which I know of at least one independent school which routinely gets high %s of A*/A grades partly by entering any potential B/C/D students as external candidates, thereby consistently keeping their ‘outstanding’ results way above the national average. Presumably they won’t have to do that this year as their less-able students will benefit from the school’s 3 year historical data...

mums - it really does sound as though your DD will be fine though if she was predicted three A. I don’t know what she is planning to do degree-wise, but even if one A dropped, it would still be enough for the most competitive courses. Unis are likely to be far more flexible this year anyway.

Also, at least when schools closed in March, the Year 13s had basically finished the curriculum anyway and were effectively on study leave. If they only need to take say, one exam in October, of course they can revise through Sept, in the same way as they would have through April. It’s the other year groups who have missed an entire term of actual teaching. Particularly the Year 10s and 12s who are still likely to have the full exams next year regardless.

It is rather disingenuous to say little Johnny who sits on his arse all year will get an A because his parents are rich and he is at Eton. Little Johnny would still have had to have done sufficient work at a sufficiently high level over his 6th Form to put himself in a position where his teachers are prepared to assess his grade as an A and be secure enough in his ranking position to put himself amongst the A*s available based on the standardisation. After all Little Johnny from the years above didn't ever just turn up on exam day and say Hi K am Little Johnny here to be given my grade they took the exams and earned them.

Yes they had the advantage of a good education at a good school but they still have to do the work and get the grade.

@SeasonFinale I think the valid point that mumsneedwine was making was that the private schools have the resources to appeal, instruct lawyers and push to get the best deal for their students. The majority of students will not have access to appeals unless their schools can find the budget and time for it.

@SeasonFinale absolutely. Also there is a massive difference between predicted grades and CAG . The two are not in the least synonymous . UCAS predicted grades were finalised last Sept, at ds independent they are given the grade they are working at , their predicted grade and a target grade every 6 weeks . For Arts subjects they very rarely predict A* on these , so ds on his predicted in school grades would have had AAA even though he was definitely targeting higher. I am quite worried that his school which is very hung up on doing this by the book will actually have gone too low compared to other schools . They are not a highly selective school.

I know the teachers have spent hours on calculating CAG and accumulating evidence etc . I have been told one other local independent has massively erred on the higher side on the basis that if they are going to be downgraded then it’s likely to be only one grade so you need to start as high as possible and it’s highly unlikely they would have to justify these.

A local state school has used a combination of predicted UCAS grades and mocks with no leeway .

The whole thing is a mess , at least if exams had gone ahead there would have been a common starting point .

Appeals will cost money and need expertise which some schools will provide better than others. And I still stand by my Eton (I love Eton by the way, their outreach is superb, but they are selective and expensive). If their student is given a CAG of an E the chances are now v high that he will be awarded at least a C, due to the algorithm. Conversely Johnny at Bog comp could be predicted an A* but no one at his school has ever got higher than a B, so he'll probably get a B. And yes he can appeal, but that is dependent on his school doing it for him. And won't be nice on Thursday.
For my own DD I doubt they will accept a dropped grade and I will be getting school to appeal if not As anyway. She's lucky to have a teacher as a mum so I know the ever changing rules.
For my students I will move heaven and earth to help them to get into their Unis. I'm helping with PS for year 12 as we speak 😊

I think there appears to have been a complete misunderstanding as to how the appeals process will work and the associated costs. I suggest perhaps a look at the JCQ Guide to Appeals issued yesterday would help. There should be no "sharp elbowed parent" benefit at all.

Schools should be all over appeals for their pupils should they feel that they have grounds for appeal.

Indeed in the latest amended 7/8/20 Guide to Results for Students issued by Ofqual there is a brand new section about appeals and the help available.

mumsneedwine - Johnny at Bog Comp in your example will still get his A* even if the school never had one before as long as the school has been sensible with their other cags. However if they have massively overinflated all their grades then he is at risk of being moderated down. Let's hope schools have been sensible and assessed grades and checked them againstbtheir own modelling properly as they were supposed to.

@SeasonFinale I know that should all happen but there are some schools who will not be as clued up as others on the appeals process. I know one that is telling students there isn't any appeal ! I have sent them a message as a 'concerned colleague'. I'm going by what has happened in Scotland where there have been a lot of kids expecting an A who have got C. All, and I do mean all, are at schools in disadvantaged areas.
Let's hope I am totally wrong and Thursday goes well for everyone. Wish the press would stop with the scaremongering as some of my poor students have been in tears on phone to me. Yes I have v unprofessionally called them after distressed emails.

www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/2020-sqa-alternative-certification-model-equality-impact-assessment.pdf page 73

This shows that the most deprived areas overstimated by 18% in Scotland and 7% in the least deprived which is why there overinflation was never going to stand. They can appeal individually though.

That's pretty bad of that school to say no grounds to appeal unless they meant that they can't appeal what the teacher gave them. Our school sent out the limited grounds but explained that if it was merely I would have done better then the recourse is to sit in Autumn.

Obviously 2 new grounds have been added into the JCQ Guide to Appeals (issued yesterday) and the revised student guide (amended yesterday) so I am assuming we will flag these up in the email sending our results links.

All schools have exams officers who have been inundated with guidance and they should be up to date with all this by now I would hope.

If you can't find these I can look out the links. I was on the OCR/JCQ Managing Results and Appeals course on Friday as were many other (online). they have been running all week and all were full so I am hopeful that they will get assistance they need if required.

I don't think it is actually unprofessional to call students to allay their fears. I agree the scaremongering just does not help anyone although someone on one platform maybe even MN did say that actually it is precisely these that has forced Ofqual into addressing issues raised and revising the appeals and guidance.

@mumsneedwine, there are only grounds for appeal if a mistake has been made in the process,

Students:

can ask their school or college to check whether it made an administrative error when submitting their centre assessment grade or position in the rank order and if it agrees it did, to submit an appeal to the exam board
Schools and colleges can appeal:

if they believe something has gone wrong in processing their results – for example, if a centre believes it has made an error when submitting its information; or similarly, that an exam board made a mistake when calculating, assigning or communicating a grade. We expect that any such mistakes will be quickly found and corrected
if they can evidence grades are lower than expected because previous cohorts are not sufficiently representative of this year’s students

Mumsneedwine I think ShalomJackie has covered what I would have replied and suspect we have similar roles!

Peaseblossom if exams had gone ahead there would have been just as much outcry over those that could access teaching and those that couldn't. I still think they have found a method that works and I predict that it will not be as drastic as the scottish results as there are more levels factored into the modelling. Schools who have been sensible will have fewer grades moderated , schools that chance their arm will have more (but they really shouldn't be surprised).

Lightuptheroom more grounds were added yesterday.

@SeasonFinale oh I see, does that mean people can now appeal individual results because as I understood it, that isn't possible

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/907493/Student_Guide_Summer_2020_6.8.2020_12.30.pdf

www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/JCQ-June-2020-appeals-guidance.pdf

Those links I referred to above in case they are of interest or assistance to anyone later this week.

@ShalomJackie @Lightuptheroom I know that appeals are possible but I also know how Thursday is going to feel for those disappointed students. No consolation losing your hard fought Uni place through no fault of your own. My school will be on it & so will DDs. And yes Scotland did over predict far too much in some areas, and this had massively affected the outliers. What I'm trying to say is how unfair this on them and how horrible they are going to feel. There are lots and lots of Scottish students currently in limbo as Unis now updating status until A levels released. None of this has been in their hands, but decided upon by SLTs who might have thought they were doing the right thing by being a bit optimistic. I just feel v v sorry for the students. Some of whom I have taught via outreach programmes.