2020 A Level Results and moderation

[ClarasZoo]

My son is awaiting the result of one A level this year. He is predicted an A and has had A exams/assessments throughout the year. Following on from the thread on the Scottish Highers disasters I am starting to worry about the results, both for him and for two family friends in the year above.

Can anyone who understands the system better than me please advise/reassure me?
So, the first example is a child who needs an A grade in one particular subject to go to the uni they want. That child is predicted an A/B. there are 5 pupils doing that subject at his school. Last year one got a B, two got Cs and two got Ds. the two years before were similar. This year, for some reason, it is a clever cohort of 6. 5 are predicted A stars and one A(friend's son). Based off previous years, there is only one B, 2 Cs and 2 Ds to hand out - can that be right? In that case, my friend's son is going to get a D, even though he should get an A/B. Please tell me this is not how it works, although looking at the press it does seem to be.
My other example is a girl who needs an A star in Italian A level. She is Italian so would breeze an A star. However, her school has never got more than a C in Italian. So will she get a C? That CAN"T be right?!
My son's grade is clearly also in doubt, if the school does not have sufficient to "hand out", isn't it?

The date for acceptance has been moved from 31 August to 7 September this year. There seems to be a very low opinion of teachers/schools if you think there will not be staff available to deal with appeals immediately.

We will have staff in from Tuesday and will spend Wednesday checking the results and whether there are any potentially missing offers (obviously we won't know until Thursday if they actually have) so that we can see whether standardisation has caused this. If it is purely because of CAG then yes they will need to take the Autumn exams.as we are happy that we have not made any error in process or.exercised bias in accordance with the guidance. We will also be checking the standardisation data used is what we expected it to be so again this will be obvious prior to Thursday.

@Frazzled6

I would expect that most appeals will come from DC who have lost their Uni offer so most will be urgent. Will Universities hold places open whilst an appeal takes place? Realistically schools will not be in a position to lodge appeals until September at the earliest given staff are on holiday.

DS,s school have emailed to say they will have staff in school and phones on Thurs and following week to help with appeals , clearing etc.

ChocolatViennois the individual results are not factored in at all it will be prior cohort attainment.

Prior cohort attainment is not the same as historic data.

Historic data looks at the data the school's previous students achieved for that subject.

Prior cohort attainment is a set of data based on results achieved by this set of students to give a database as to what should be achieved. This may of course match, be higher than or lower than the set that historic data produces.

Nationally this year is a cleverer cohort so it stands to reason that many schools will have better than historic data results.

Whilst I understand the anxiety of the fact that in a national exam you are competing against everyone and therefore you are not restricted to the eg. 7.x A* your school will get the data does actually show that generally the % of each grade awarded.for a school is pretty consistent.

If the makeup of this year's cohort is markedly different this has now been included as a ground for appeal.

I am afraid I am not one to criticise the make it up as we go along thing. To me this is a good thing as it indicates they are indeed listening to and trying to address concerns and anomalies and eventualities they hadn't considered.

I think with A levels in particular when there are fewer teachers and longer contact time over the course of the year the teachers do have a pretty good idea of the pupils ability.

I understand the grounds of appeal are mainly at cohort level, so do you still think that state schools who maybe the schools largely affected by downgrading issues will be able to submit appeals before September?

I fully understand that Independent schools will have staff on hand.

I am afraid I am not one to criticise the make it up as we go along thing. To me this is a good thing as it indicates they are indeed listening to and trying to address concerns and anomalies and eventualities they hadn't considered.*

Ofqual did not want an appeals system they tried to avoid it at all costs. Thankfully they have been bullied into offering an appeals process largely because Scotland chose to do the right thing. Most people would have 'accepted' this years exam calculation system had there been an appeals system. Hopefully Ofqual will do the right thing and also offer free appeals like Scotland.

It is not Ofqual that hear the appeals it is the individual awarding bodies. There was always an appeals system from the outset it has just been modified along the way.

Yes the State Schools have Exams Officers and staff available to deal with results and appeals - the same as they do every year for results and reviews.

Yes. Sorry I was aware there was a very limited appeals system but Ofqual have amended this following the outcry of the Scottish students. Its Ofqual who decide what grounds appeals can be made not the exam boards.

My Dcs school has staff in on results day no mention of dealing with Appeals, largely because the appeals process only changed this week.

We will have staff in from Tuesday and will spend Wednesday checking the results and whether there are any potentially missing offers

Do schools know what offers their pupils are holding or have firmed? I am not sure my DS's school knows what he needs to get into his first choice unversityi. When lockdown happened, many young people were still waiting for offers from St A, Durham and LSE. DS has had no individual contact from school since his last day in March.

Been a few years since I did ucas so it might have changed since but we could log in and see all learners in our section and what their firm was and what they were offered.

Thank you @slothbyday, I did not know schools could do that.

Crammer - yes I have a login to UCAS Advisers track and can see all our y13 applications including personal statements, references and predicted grades as well as a section showing the offers they received and what grades they need, what were unsuccessful and when they firm and insure which they have selected and declined. It also shows all the terms of those offers. We see when they go unconditional.

We will get grades on Wednesday so can carry out a manual check as to who may miss their firms and who may also miss insurance. I say may because the uni can choose to keep them anyway. That way we can work out ahead of time how many and who may need help the day before. Our UCAS Adviser track also updates an hour before students so again we can run a spreadsheet to see who has been placed in clearing.

@ShalomJackie Wow. That is really useful to know; thank you. It seems very sensible to me and as you say, schools can target particular pupils who may need support and advice on Thursday.

Can you give me an insight into what happens in a typical school on Wednesday? How many staff are in? What information does a school get and when? What admin tasks need to be done and how are these prioritised? What time does the day start and finish on Wednesday? How does this compare to Thursday?

I think with A levels in particular when there are fewer teachers and longer contact time over the course of the year the teachers do have a pretty good idea of the pupils ability

You say that, but roughtly 50% of predicted grades on UCAS are overestimated every year, so it's not unusual this year, that they should be the same.

@Baaaahhhhh but that is UCAS predictions which are made usually in September so 10 months before the exams . That is very different to CAG which will have been formulated a full two terms later when teachers will have a much clearer idea of potential grades.

Also the UCAS grades are unashamedly aspirational. They are the best your teachers think you could get on a good day, with a fair wind. The CAG grades are supposed to be an accurate estimate of what you would actually get based on evidence from mocks, coursework marks etc. just a few weeks away from sitting the exams.

I am so worried about my child's A level grades that up until today have avoided reading anything about it.I cannot understand how it is more acceptable to trust a statistician in a govt office somewhere to give a grade to a student over the grade allocated to them by a teacher who has been with them for at least 2 years if not 7 in many cases. My DC had reasonable GCSE results and was predicted amazing A levels by teachers they have been with for 7 years, who saw that they had upped their game for the 3 subjects that they massively enjoyed and were gutted that my DC wasnt going to get the chance to show how they had leapt on from GCSE's. Why cant we trust teachers to be professional and give accurate grades? Yes there will be one or two rogue ones that over inflate but honestly isnt it about time we just trusted them to do their jobs? no wonder there is resistance to going back to school in September they must feel thoroughly demoralised by the lack of trust.

Yes there will be one or two rogue ones that over inflate but honestly isnt it about time we just trusted them to do their jobs?

Because as the submitted grades show, over-inflation is huge. It it was just a handful of rogue markers there wouldn't be a problem. But the grades have been inflated massively.

To be honest I'm surprised at how much, but there you have it.

OFQUAL have said the results are over inflated by about 10%, so 1 grade in 10 (12% above average but the cohort is 2% higher). And this is probably giving a B rather than a C. Because teachers have had to try and guess whether a student would have a good day or a bad day. Yes it's a lot but in the scheme of things would it really matter ? If Unis are likely to accept lower grades anyway why not just let the kids have their teacher grades. A computer shouldn't really decided their futures.

Yes it does matter! As you currently say unis are likely to be far more flexible this year, so moderating grades won't on the whole affect kids' uni places.

On the other hand the kids that don't go to uni would be forever be stuck with grades that employers etc had no confidence in if they weren't moderated. Plus year on year comparisons wouldn't be valid, and they're used for all sorts of things.

And if teachers knew their grades wouldn't be moderated the inflation issue would be far greater.

@titchy I will agree to disagree. For most students it will never make any difference if they get a B or a C. But for the disadvantaged students who would have got an A* and now get a B the effect will be huge. They will likely be rejected on Thursday as were aiming for the top Unis and courses that will be less lenient. Private, grammar and middle class comps will probably be fine as they have good historic results. Tougher schools will be badly affected, as in Scotland.
And no one in education is going to use this years results in any future modelling as we know they are a statistic not a reality. They will forever be the COVID results.

Although I obviously see titchys point i agree with mumsneedwine unprecedented times (which I’m sick of hearing to be honest) call for unprecedented measures

I think its an incredibly difficult thing to get right and be fair

Plus i do need wine...especially on Thursday 😩

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer I never knew my username would become quite so real ! I have 2 hats in this game, as a mum and a teacher. My mum hat is scared stiff as DD needs the grades for vet med. Something she has worked so hard towards for years, gaining weeks and weeks of work experience and lots of interviews. So I worry if the algorithm throws up a weird result for her. I'd just like to get Thursday morning over.
And then I'm a teacher of a very mixed ability A level class. I have given CAGs from A*s to E. I have no clue what they will actually end up with as we have a large cohort and a very spikey set of results as we are a comp.
I will give up 🍷next week.

Thing is with the grades as parents we obviously do make it personal

So dd got a B in her PE mock, she has every confidence that she would have got an A in the actual exam

Her PE teacher told her before college ended that she was going to recommend that dd got a B

So a smidge disappointing but understandable and probably ‘fair’

But if she is marked down to a C cos they assume the teacher is inflating the grade how in the hell Is that fair?

And i know, i know I shouldn’t get worried about this and it has to be fair and it doesn’t mean that she will be marked down but thats why I’m worried