A level inflation - half to get A or A stars......

[mids2019]

So we have maybe up to half of A level students getting A or A stars this year due to teacher assesed grades.

This degree of grade inflation does seem unsustainable but are we prepared for significant grade deflation in future years to get back to pre pandemic normality?

How many students will now be deferring with the hope of entering a higher tariff institution?

Does this means newer universities are going to be losing out on students?

Should there maybe even other methods of identifying high achievers if courses are competitive?

I thought the marks were being moderated so why are they so high? I'm taking this with a pinch of salt to be honest - I didn't get the impression from my son's sixth form college that they'd be inflating the grades in any way - in fact I thought they were being quite harsh (and I am still a bit worried that they will put undue emphasis on the mocks despite saying that they wouldn't). And the results are embargoed - who is letting the cat out of the bag early?

Every news story before results day is about similar grade inflation, its always a bit less than they make out it will be. Good luck to all involved and I hope your results reflect your ability and your hard work as they should if the system has done its job for you.

It is ironic that students who have been so disadvantaged in their education by the pandemic are (according to the media), set to achieve the highest grades ever. I think the students have worked hard and are deserving of their teacher assessed grades, but there is bound to be a significant drop in attainment when standard public exams are reintroduced in 2022 and 2023.

Tory propaganda

How dare the plebs do well???

Fuckers

It's the same every year

I might have got the wrong end of the stick but I was under the impression that this year’s grades were supposed to be in line with the results from 2017-2019. This would mean a significantly drop in A star and A grades compared with last treat.

I’m another one with a DD at sixth form college who has been given the impression that grades this year will be anything but generous.

Yes, DD's school were typically austere in their messages about A level marking, wanting to make it clear that they were playing by the rules and would not entertain interventions from sharper-elbowed parents.

@PlumeMoth

I might have got the wrong end of the stick but I was under the impression that this year’s grades were supposed to be in line with the results from 2017-2019. This would mean a significantly drop in A star and A grades compared with last treat.

I’m another one with a DD at sixth form college who has been given the impression that grades this year will be anything but generous.

@PlumeMoth if media reports are to be believed there is likely to be significant grade inflation this year and as a result, universities are looking at more students gaining places in certain subjects that they can accommodate.

I hope everything works out for your dd.

Yes it was the media articles that I thought were interesting.

It maybe that teacher assessed grades may be more accurate (?)as it removes the vagaries of a single exam.

Are we getting a true reflection of ability with the the covid enforced changes.

I just feel if the grade distribution is going to get back to previous years the there may be a bit of a bump.

@Mrs08

Tory propaganda

How dare the plebs do well???

Fuckers

It's the same every year

The whole point of the grading system is to differentiate the respective ability of the cohort. If everyone gets the highest grades, it fails to do that. The whole point is that the best students get the top grade, the next tier get the next grade down, etc. Handing out the top grades to too many people makes the whole thing meaningless.

@mids2019

Yes it was the media articles that I thought were interesting.

It maybe that teacher assessed grades may be more accurate (?)as it removes the vagaries of a single exam.

Are we getting a true reflection of ability with the the covid enforced changes.

I just feel if the grade distribution is going to get back to previous years the there may be a bit of a bump.

I suspect that there'll be a new "top" grade to deal with that, i.e. A** rather than reducing the grade boundaries for future years.

Handing out the top grades to too many people makes the whole thing meaningless.

But Unis and employers know that grades this year are inflated! They'll take it into account,

But Unis and employers know that grades this year are inflated! They'll take it into account

Well I'll wait to see actual evidence of inflation rather than conjecture by the infuriatingly negative media.

@Violetlavenders

Handing out the top grades to too many people makes the whole thing meaningless.

But Unis and employers know that grades this year are inflated! They'll take it into account,

Trouble is that it's not just this year that it will matter. People getting their A levels last year and this year will be applying to Uni in lots of different future years, they'll be applying for jobs/apprenticeships in the future too.

Not all 18 year olds move to Uni, apprenticeships/jobs immediately.

Having over-inflated grades for a couple of years will skew uni/job application processes for years to come.

That's why you can't just write it off as an unusual year. People applying to Uni in years to come, as mature students will have an unfair advantage with their A/A* grades against younger people who've "only" got B or C if grade inflation is reversed next year and beyond.

That's why I confidently expect a new grade of A* to be introduced, so that future school leavers with an A are equivalent to last year's with an A or A.

Employers/Unis who want the highest achieving students need a reliable benchmark to work with, not a moving target!

@igelkott2021

But Unis and employers know that grades this year are inflated! They'll take it into account

Well I'll wait to see actual evidence of inflation rather than conjecture by the infuriatingly negative media.

Well it's fact that we had grade inflation last year due to the foul up in awarding grades. So that's at least 1 out of the 2 years when it's not "conjecture".

Over on the HE boards, we have several Uni lecturers saying that they had to accept far higher numbers of students than they could cope with because so many people eventually got higher grades than normal, so as offers had been made, they had to be honoured. That was clearly because of grade inflation. The original grades had been "adjusted" so that numbers in each band were in line with prior years, but the adjustment was such a foul up that they ended up scrapping the adjustment and just giving everyone the "predicted" grades, which meant more people than normal got the higher grades.

But as you say, we have to wait and see what this year brings.

Not all schools & colleges did well last year. Some big name state schools had "self regulated" and scaled their scores, not realising that they would be dropped even further with the algorithm. When the grades were bounced back up to the CAGs they realised that some students who deserved higher grades had been limited by their own school. There were some interesting conversations with universities where the school tried to explain that they hadn't really meant to give the grades the students ended up with.

@Violetlavenders

Handing out the top grades to too many people makes the whole thing meaningless.

But Unis and employers know that grades this year are inflated! They'll take it into account,

The problem is that this isn't fair.

What about the student who would have got the grade anyway? They're assumed to have it inflated and undeserving.

What about the student whose school didn't inflate their grades and is given a fairly accurate A grade. Not only are they bumped by deserved and undeserving A*, but also people will assume that they didn't deserve the A.

You can't take it into account as you don't know that student's situation.

There actually should be grade inflation from a normal year because CAG has to go on what a student would do on a normal or good day, not on a bad day. Schools will be doing their best to be fair but it is not a national system with single exams and mark schemes.

It is a big problem for universities, employers and students in years before and after. It’s also rubbish for the actual students.

The day I got my GCSEs and did really well the Education Secretary announced an investigation into the dumbing down and grade inflation. It made me feel sad and I had done well. However it made my friend who got a D feel worse - even in this allegedly dumbed down system she hadn’t managed the C she was hopping for.
I hope someone is looking out for the students at all levels that don’t do as well as they’d hoped.

The expectation that more people will achieve their predicted grades has already been factored in by many universities hence all the threads earlier in the year where many were not getting offers at competitive unis when they would usually have received an offer in a "normal" year.

The reality is there will be more at higher grades this year based on the grades being evidence based and that schools chose which assessments were used as grading pieces.

50% getting A grades does seem a mockery, think it was closer to 10% when I sat them (very old!)

It will be tough for students where schools/colleges have been stricter with their marking than other colleges.

DS is waiting his GCSE results, his school took a quite tough stance on how they did the tests and exams, whereas another local college seemed to take a more relaxed approach, guiding the students heavily before they sat the tests. Not sure the results will be fair.

@SeasonFinale

The expectation that more people will achieve their predicted grades has already been factored in by many universities hence all the threads earlier in the year where many were not getting offers at competitive unis when they would usually have received an offer in a "normal" year.

The reality is there will be more at higher grades this year based on the grades being evidence based and that schools chose which assessments were used as grading pieces.

There were reports in the media over the weekend that some Unis are really going to struggle. Apparently, they're worried that "too many" offer holders are going to get the grades required for the Uni courses, so the Unis will, again, have too many students on their courses, for the second year running.

Some unis used that as an excuse for online/remote teaching, saying that they had too many students who wouldn't fit in lecture theatres, seminar/tutorial rooms, etc. (That's on top of Covid - some Unis didn't do face to face teaching even when allowed between lockdowns due to "too many students").

Uni's are happy to take the fees from the excess students, but not willing to make provision to teach them properly!

Before people get too concerned, remember that the curriculum was slimmed down for this cohort of students due to the difficulties in teaching between March and September 2020. In my subject we dropped en entire Area of Study at both A level and GCSE and communicated this to the students. The exam boards cut down the non-examined components (old-style coursework) so that students only had to produce one composition and one performance rather than the 2 compositions and longer performances that are normally in the specification.

Given that there is "less to learn" for however schools came up with their CAGs, it is likely that grades will be higher given we could only ask questions of the normal depth. Generally, if the curriculum is narrowed, one would expect questions to demonstrate a greater depth of knowledge or understanding. That was not the case this year as we were told to use previous questions. I should also point out that students had open access to all but the 2020 papers and mark schemes (where indeed they exist). The 2020 papers are password protected for around a year. Diligent students will have used them as part of their revision process and will almost certainly have seen some of the questions before.

We have tried to be professional and fair in the awarding of our CAGs. We looked at a range of work covering all components of the course. Students did assessments under exam conditions and everything was double marked. In all cases, grades are the same or one grade different from the target grades we set in year 9 for GCSE or 12 for A level, long before Covid surfaced. Our students took these very seriously, as seriously as they would have taken normal exams, and deserve their grades. Unlike last year, they knew that we would be grading their work and they have put in a lot of effort in difficult circumstances throughout years 11 and 13.

If students have studied less content will this also have a knock on effect too though? So even with high grades they will have less knowledge

@ineedaholidaynow

If students have studied less content will this also have a knock on effect too though? So even with high grades they will have less knowledge

Indeed, it could cause serious problems if the Uni Degree is linked to the A level, or the A level follows on the GCSE.

My son has just finished his first year at Uni (Maths degree). He really struggled with some modules where content was assumed to be known from A level.

That's despite him missing only the last few weeks of the A level course from where schooling abruptly ended in March 2020. There was only one major topic that they didn't get taught, but it was worse than that because they didn't "revise" all the other topics of the prior 18 months, which they'd have done had the A levels gone ahead. They missed out on all the revision materials they'd have been given, working through past papers, etc.

He says himself, it was a major mistake by the politicians to cancel the exams so early, as neither the teachers nor students did anything re the A levels once school had closed. He'd have carried on working at home "towards" the A levels if the cancellation decision hadn't been announced, and likewise his teachers would have continued teaching them online, providing revision materials, past papers etc.

As it turned out, he had to spend hours of extra time whilst at Uni to "teach himself" all the things he'd not been taught or had forgotten (forgotten because he'd never revised!), all without materials, etc, as the Uni provided no support to bring them "up to speed", no transitional work, etc.

@ineedaholidaynow

If students have studied less content will this also have a knock on effect too though? So even with high grades they will have less knowledge

Depends on the subject. It doesn't matter if eg you are doing law at university and didn't do law at A level (or even if you did).

Probably does matter for sciences/engineering etc and universities may have to factor in some foundation teaching.

Interesting responses. I would think some kind of extension of top grades to A star star or a number system may be the way forward.

It will be interesting to see the impact on educational inequality on the new means of assessment. If those from disadvantaged groups have faired relatively well under the new system will the government wish to continue with this form of assessment in some form?

I think universities will be under pressure to re evaluate their admissions criteria; the question is how to make this fair?