Using mock results for A levels? This is the last straw for my sanity. I appreciate that the government is trying to add a safety net by allowing mock results to be used for university entry but really, does this help?
There is so much wrong with this - mocks (the clue is in the title) are final results minus 4 months of slaving like a dog. They are internal exams, typically have only 1 paper (rather than 2 or 3 or 4, meaning the effect of one bad paper is amplified) and rarely cover the whole syllabus. There is no standardisation of marking across schools and grades typically given on % boundaries not a national bell curve. We had an internal bell curve on a small cohort which is the worst of both worlds. But I didn't challenge 75% being a B because, hey, it's a mock. It could now stop my daughter going to uni.
Papers are often marked to incentivise (time honoured kick-up approach) and, in my experience, some genders fare far better in the real exam than they did in mocks. Presumably all of this contributes to why unis don't look at mocks as an indicator.
As for the process, how do students get these mock grades to their unis and UCAS? Via Ofqual? How long will it take? Can papers be remarked or appealed? And for the coming Y13, watch the parents fight for good results incase this happens again. All of this when schools are supposed to be spending their energies focussing on opening this term.
As for unis, will they hold places open whilst all of this is going on as they have been asked to? Supposing your mocks get you into your insurance choice but not your firm or you don't make either: do both institutions have to keep both the places for you, pending the appeal? That means neither goes into clearing, which makes that process a joke. Then in the coming academic year, there is a minimum of one and possibly two unfilled spaces. A financial disaster for them, just as the predicted numbers of lucrative international students are unsure.
All this just as as Scottish results were upgraded, so it isn't a level playing field for those looking to go to a Scottish uni or competing for spaces with a Scottish student. On a political level, this could be canny move by Nichola S to either force the government's hand or effectively bolster support for the SNP (we'll be fair to your children').
Ofqual want to maintain the integrity of these examinations. Given the news on job losses,
Or is this a political move to pave the way for a move to CAG whilst maintaining the narrative that teachers ruined the process? Meaning we'll get CAGs next week too and it's a smorgasbord of possible results from which to pick and choose.
I am not saying CAGs are perfect or that there is an easy answer. But much of this mess was avoidable. I am no statistician or computer nerd but to have a model that incorporated not only data for the institution but also the individual (historical and predictive - mocks, GCSE results, predicted grades, CAGs) when such info is easily available doesn't seem beyond the wit of man.
Rant over.