Whole cohort in a subject underperformed?

[EmmaStone]

Hi there, I'd be interested in teachers/markers' experience on this.

DD got her A Level results back yesterday - 2 results were definitely in line with expectations, but her best and favourite subject she was predicted an 'easy' A star, but was awarded a B. The other 2 students at her school were predicted As and achieved C & D.

The school is a selective indie, generally gets excellent results, so this is very out of the oridinary. Teachers all experienced in the subject.

DD got into her firm Uni regardless, so isn't inclined to do anything, but should we query these cohort's results?

The school will be querying the results themselves. At least most will. After exams we go over the papers, where our students did well / where they lost marks and if we need to make any changes. So I would suspect that this would be flagged and looked over.

With only 3 students it makes it a bit harder to apply statistics but they will still look for trends. They might ask for access to the scripts to see what went awry.

Congratulations to your daughter and good luck for next year.

When I did my A Levels at a selective state school my entire cohort did worse than expected in English literature. The school had the papers looked at and it turned out either a whole paper or a page of a paper, I can’t remember, hadn’t been marked on everyone’s exam. It didn’t affect me but it did affect a lot of people’s university places. These things do happen.

OK, so if the school is discussing them, should we get any information? Do they need DD's permission to access her script?

@Marsyas wow, that's a shocker!!

What was the subject? My son also got a B in a subject where he was predicted A*. That was physics. Thankfully he's still been taken by his first choice uni.

I would raise a complaint as it will benefit kids who haven’t got into their first choices. Seems like a serious failure.

It was Class Civ (so quite niche!). I think if it were a more popular subject, there'd have been uproar! Of the 3, one missed firm and insurance as a result, although the other 2 (including DD) still got their firms.

I've asked DD to email her teachers...

@EmmaStone , I work in education and the subjects that haven't performed as expected will have a review. Funds will allocated to review the papers and see what went wrong and the planning will be adapted so the students are aware of what the exam board wants. The teachers will also go on courses run by the exam board to see how the marking should be applied. I would guess that the school wasn't teaching the students to answer the question in the way the exam board would like but the grade inflation of last 3 years has "masked" this issue. I'm sure the teacher is upset and knows they have to answer to their head of Dept re what went wrong.
At my dc's school they have asked the students to give permission for a review of a paper because the marks allocated are so low.

Also remember the schools use these papers for mocks next year so they need to understand how to mark them in the future.

It sounds as though the teacher hadn't applied the mark scheme correctly during their internal assessments or set work at an appropriate level. Have they been in the role long?

Class Civ results low in my school too (non selective state ).

My daughter missed her offer at Cambridge because Classic Civ and RS didn't get any A. Again she was at a selective Indi and they generally gets excellent results.... Never perceived she won't get an A in them....

@untilwhen Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope she's ok?

Yes, very experienced teachers, but none of them were at school for results (and DD wasn't ready to speak to anyone at school when she collected her results anyway).

Will see what comes back...

It could be that the exam focussed on a different area to that which those students had been examined in before. It is only 3 students so impossible to say anything about their results, really. There might be a tiny number of marks between an A star and a B

Just goes to show private schools aren’t all that. All DC at state schools a know predicted As got them, and the parents saved tens of thousands.

Gosh this is a helpful and empathetic response.

In classical civ my son a few years ago got a B and that was the highest mark in the private school. I also feel there have been other anomalies in results with that subject. Perhaps it is just harder than we think or the teaching was bad. I don't think they did a remark and he got the grades for his university place but it still troubles me to this day.

It's also plainly not true. I teach in a state school so I know this. Plenty of thrilled , and disappointed, students except in the subjects I teach ;)

The smaller subjects were 'reformed' in the last wave (going from modular to linear and with revised specifications) with exams in 2019. So teachers only have one or at most two years' worth of marked papers to judge how the markschemes are being applied. These small subjects also have minimal feedback/training from the boards. 🙁

I suspect, and can wander off to research it, that classics may be one of the subjects that ahs seen a bigger falloff of top grades this year. I think it is one of the subjects which saw the biggest 'inflation' of top grades since 2019. This probably made predicting very hard for teachers.

Soem subjects were inflated a bit less during Covid and so haven't been as viciously (for want of a better word) pegged back.

The classics results are never brilliant at our school - partly because we are a a comp school doing classics in a pool of highly selective schools, but one students did get 2 A stars in other subjects this year and a B in CC, for example.

Oh yes, and also that!!

Sorry, I meant to say A stars but have accidentally bolded my message instead!! Oops

Here's your data!

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2023/08/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2023-the-main-trends-in-grades-and-entries/

Huge drop in top grades in 'classical subjects'.

There's a drop down menu.

I had this twice when I took O'Levels a million years ago. In two subjects.

Our whole maths group had done well enough in fourth year exams to go up a group (in name at least) but our brilliant teacher left and we had the headmistress who actually hadn't taught for years. When she remembered to show up she was rubbish and not one of us passed.

In Commerce, again the whole class failed as the teacher had been teaching the wrong syllabus 🤦‍♀️

There was no remedy.

(I would have loved to have studied Class Civ!)

Something similar happened to me 20 years ago - no one in the history class got the top grade, despite many being predicted and one girl missed Cambridge history because of it. There was no anomaly, but apparently the examiner who marked them was notorious for being stingy. At least, that's what we were told.

We had another girl predicted an A, who got an E, in a different subject. Turned out that they'd forgotten to mark an entire one of her papers!

Classical Civilisation had good results at dc’s state grammar.
2 A star, 7 A, 5B, 2C and 1 D. Much better than their RS grades.

This happened to us this year - really strong year group, experienced teachers who have taught spec for years and grading v odd. Coursework unchanged so must be down to exam marking. We have called for scripts and can then ask for a review once we’ve seen them. Unfortunately this does happen- I’ve been teaching for 27 years and there have been many occasions where a particular paper has been marked overly harshly.