Predictions- just angry and hurt for my dd.

[PinkChaires]

for context, my dd attends a very very large well regarded sixth form college where departments basically work completely separately
on her biology mock, she got a B ( this was in feb -dont get me started on how i think it was far too early)
she got As on every test all year around minus one in jan which was deemed as unnecessarily hard by her teacher at parents evening. She got told at parents evening by her teacher with me there that she would get an A prediction post mock and she then went on to get a A on the next test. She has gotten a B prediction today. Shes really upset since she thought she would be getting A*AA so all of her plans are out the window.

I think this sounds a little unfair given the context and can understand how you feel this impacts her options.

But it really doesn't. She could plan for a gap year, work her arse off on the A levels and then apply with grades in hand. If she gets the A star, A A you hope she will, she can then put 5 top notch options on her UCAS form at the start, not having to do the usual 2 reaches, 2 targets, 1 likely / safety option that you put when you literally don't know how it is going to play out.

I would put my energy into this now, not wrangling with the school to change the predictions. Essentially it doesn't matter what they predict in the end, it matters what she gets.

dd really really does not want a gap year. It would not be the best thing for her mentally. Thankfully the predicts can change so we are leaving this until sep and in the mean time she says that she will revise

@PinkChaires sounds like a good plan. Fingers crossed for Sept.

If you are applying for medicine yes it does! We had this problem and my son would stand no chance without a predicted A. We got it changed after wrangling. He is now a consultant

@PinkChaires So there is time for this to change? Has she looked to see if any of her favoured universities might be flexible on grades for the course she wants? Are any of the courses in clearing? Are they all ultra competitive? Could she tweak the choice of course so she doesn’t need the grades she wanted predicted? Sciences are not always very competitive.

All is not lost if she’s got until October. I would speak to the teacher about how she can improve to get the A prediction. I agree a mock in Feb is too early. They had 1.5 terms of teaching at most!

Wait…you can only study medicine at one university? I never knew that

All had this condition. Clearly you have never applied to read medicine. And many insist on As at GCSE

Surely it is this second set of predictions that are used for UCAS then?
In which case I'm not sure what the fuss is about?

Im the wrong one then. Dd just emailed her teacher and got it changed!

Super.

Didnt say I had. My point is there is no way in hell this girls whole future hangs on one predicted grade for one uni. Anyhoo its all sorted now it seems.

spot on

This. YABU and over dramatic @PinkChaires 2 A grades and a B will be fine! KINDLY^, get a grip. Stop projecting your issues onto your daughter! She will think she is a failure if she doesn't get 3 A*!

Do you not think the whole idea of "predicted grades" is extremely stupid.

Thw universities could just wait for the actual exam results. That is how it works in Ireland.

I went to school in Ireland. There are no predicted grades at all.

You just apply for university, then you get your school exam results back.

You get into the university course that you applied for, if your exam results were good enough

What @Marinamay44 said! ^

I agree OP, any decent uni is asking for A or above unless you are contextual. We had a similar situation and I persisted (and DS worked his socks off) and we got what we needed. Whether he’ll get the grades is yet to be seen.

The current predicted grades and offers before results is broken. We should do it like other countries-offers on results.

I also feel that schools are controlling this and I don’t know why. My DC was told they had put too many high ranking unis on UCAS - so the expectation if that a student will go to uni for the sake of it and get £50+ of debt. No thanks, they’d be better off taking another route. If more people
understood about course and uni value we could shake the system up and get young people in the right place, not just at any uni.

@PinkChaires ahh! Great news - can relax a bit & enjoy summer.

They can't use that system. Competitive courses and unis in the UK are often well oversubscribed so they can't just accept everyone who applies and meets their grades.

Universities don't expect predictions to be spot on, and will usually accept that a prediction may be a grade out, because if she needs an A and does not achieve it, then she won't meet the offer.

Sorry didn’t read whole thread! Well done to your DD!

OP she got a B in a test in January, a B in the mock so it's not unreasonable to predict her a B. Teacher will obviously see if she was couple of marks off A or closer to middle/lower end of a B. You have said there are further predictions in October so instead of the anger and hurt focus on revision, working hard to pull the grade up and speak to the new teacher in September.
Also you should probably discuss with her predictions don't mean the grade has been awarded if she's applying based on A*AA she still needs to 1. Be accepted to the course and 2. Meet the conditions of the offer. Getting the grades predicted doesn't guarantee an offer or place on the desired course

There are some very odd replies on this thread. My DC went to a highly regarded sixth form where mocks were early. He did get the predicted grades he needed but there was one blip test paper where a teacher he only had for part of year 12 - in a subject where there were numerous different teachers over his time there - gave a mysterious B in her mock paper. Overall prediction in the subject was A, thankfully.

To all those saying B is ok - it depends what kind of student trajectory you are on either in humanities or science and one exam or one teacher should not be enough to derail that.

Universities will give (conditional) offers to people whose predicted grades don't quite match their stated requirements if everything else points to the student being suitable. They may also admit students whose final grades don't hit the target in some circumstances.

There's also the option of a gap year so she can submit an application based on her final grades.

Well done to your DD! I know some students did that when my DDs were taking A levels, some were changed some not.

So the issue has been solved now but why are we discounting all other tests which were A/A* . Including one two weeks ago. This is why predictions are a horrible system