Summer A level grades - Ofqual's plans need to be challenged

[mbell666]

It's not been widely reported in the media but Ofqual have made decisions about how they are going to determine A level marks which could affect your child's chances of getting their university place.

They're going to implement a "statistical standardisation model/process" which will have your child's grades adjusted based on the historical performance at their school - so if your child had good predicted grades and expected to do well, but comes from a school that's hasn't performed very well in the last 3 years at A level, you and your child could be in for a shock come results date 13 August. Ofqual will take the marks their school/college has submitted and potentially adjust them downwards, just because no students have done very well in past years.

Does that sound fair to you?

To add insult to injury, your child won't be able to appeal their awarded grades either. So let's hope their university are understanding when they don't meet their required grades. I've already heard of situations where the uni has stated that if the required grades aren't met then the place won't be available, even though the student was a straight A* student but just unfortunately goes to a mediocre school and is therefore likely to have their grades adjusted downwards through no fault of their own.

There is a legal challenge to this running on Crowdjustice - see
www.crowdjustice.com/case/challenge-ofqual/ . Share it if you can and support it if it's relevant to you. This is totally unjust and needs to be challenged!

Have you been living under a rock for the last few months? DfE announced this, consulted and published the detail fully.

I've already heard of situations where the uni has stated that if the required grades aren't met then the place won't be available, even though the student was a straight A student but just unfortunately goes to a mediocre school and is therefore likely to have their grades adjusted downwards through no fault of their own.

'Course you have...

Bullshit. What's your alternative?

I agree this is problematic particularly the lack of right to appeal. To what extent it impacts on individual students like the dd the crowdfunder discusses remains to be seen. I do think the ship may have possibly sailed as the pp said, this discussion has been going on for quite some time.

Perhaps you need to understand the process better? Students aren't automatically dragged down if their institution is poorly performing. The model is adjusted to the pupil's starting point, i.e. their GCSE average grade.
There is a consultation at the moment that anyone can respond to.

Maybe I should start a petition against Germany's annexing of Poland...

As a parent of someone who might be severely affected by this, can you suggest ANYTHING better? Because I cant! Its the best we got.

I think it seems fair tbh. I was predicted straight A grades (before the invention of the A) at a rubbish school. And straight As at GCSE. Didn't get them, despite being the highest performer in the year at A level. The school does have a big impact. It does seem unfair for those rare very gifted kids, but then, presumably the rare very gifted kids would have gotten straight 9s or whatever it is nowadays at GCSE so that'd help their case for beating the system at A level.

I think you have to consider why that system is there..... To stop a school over inflating grades, which would then disadvantage kids at other schools, on order to maintain the dreaded curve.
I think it's probably the best they could've come up with.

I'm sure I read that the school has some right of appeal if they believe the data is incorrect. I am another whose child might be impacted but I have to believe the school has enough evidence to support their grade (GCSE, mocks, external national competition results).

Titchy, you're very friendly aren't you. See this www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/05/18/two-and-a-half-cheers-for-ofquals-standardisation-model-just-so-long-as-schools-comply/#comment-32843

Haskel, the consultation is over. And there is no individual adjustment of the model in the way you suggest noted in Ofqual's response to the consultation.

As for how they could do things differently, how about leaving a right of appeal in for the student in the same way there is every other year? Don't you think it's rather unfair to remove that?????

During an appeal in any other year they go back to the exam paper and check it. This year there is no paper to go back to, it just can't be the same.

Nothing is going to be perfectly fair but in some ways the results this year may be more fair than normal for the candidate having a bad day on the exam day or on the other hand who happened to get exactly the specific subject they had revised on the paper.

And to clarify, the ONLY information that the school will pass to the exam board is the student's predicted grade and their rank order, no other supporting information goes forward.

What is the alternative. What can we put into place before 13 Aug? 68 days time. What can we do that will not have a whole cohort run screaming for the hills? Every student will be in the same position.

My daughter is in the same position. She needs fantastic grades for her uni course. It was always going to be touch-and-go as to whether she would make the grade in or out of exam, so we have to wait and see. She has alternate plans in place - as should any A level aspirant.

She is glad that her work over the past years will be taken into account, she is not happy that she will not get the chance to "pull it out of the bag" with a stellar exam performance. She is not happy that they were told that mocks did not matter, they could coast on one subject and concentrate on the most important etc. (she is doing 4). But she is glad that she did not have to continue with coursework due to not having the equipment.

Basically, she is very glad to not have the stress of exams, she is not glad to have lost that chance to shine.

There are pluses and minuses in the system chosen. As there would be in ANY system chosen. The kids have to be supported through these very unusual circumstances whatever happens. Telling them that results are not a be all and end all, that their life will not be destroyed if they don't get what they want in this short snapshot of time is far more important than whinging that it's not fair.

It's not a perfect system but I do think the outliers will be ok based on taking GCSE results into account... The modelling will surely pick up the grade 9s and expect to see high grade A levels in related subjects but this may not cover subjects that were not covered at GCSE level.

My Dds school maybe impacted ( I managed to get hold of their past subject A level results) and the top grades were up by 50 percent year on year largely because girls had swapped from taking IB to A levels and it was a brighter cohort based on GCSE results. This year's cohort is very similar to last year's...which should be obvious when comparing year on year results taking into account the cohorts GCSE results.

Rather than post here OP, why don't you read some of the comments to the blog you posted? The reality is that if there were exams there would have been surprises. That dead-cert Astar kid who scraped a B, that on-target-for-a-D kid who pulled a B out of the bag. Happens every year at every school in every subject. This system is going to be far fairer to far more kids than if they'd say exams I'd suggest.

And no I'm not friendly to posters who post stuff that has been debated already and is designed to inflame worried parents and students. Plenty of teachers and uni admissions people have posted here to reassure and it's just not fair to get people all worked up again. It's a stressful enough time.

But how else would you do it? Predicted grades are just estimates. At DS's school loads of DC got better or worse grades than predicted at A level and I assume this was the same at all schools. That's why we have a clearing system.

The aim of the system this year is to ensure that DC get as near as possible to the grades that they would have achieved had they taken the exams.

There will always be some who are disappointed and some who are pleasantly surprised.

Titchy, my post was not designed to inflame worried parents, strangely enough the reason for my post is because I am one of them. It doesn't require you to use profanities in your response. I am quite happy to listen to alternative opinions, but I don't expect to be shouted down just because I say something you don't agree with. Just rude.

Secondly, all, my point is not with the school coming up with grades for my child which I may or may not agree with. What I have an issue with is the use of a black box model that even Ofqual haven't managed to work out the details of yet and which could adjust my daughter's grades down simply because of the school she goes to. This is surely unjust? There is no equivalent in normal exam years, of course marks are moderated but their adjustment is NOT tied to the performance of previous cohorts from that particular school.

I'd also like to make another point. There seems to be an implicit assumption in the use of this statistical standardisation process that schools will inflate their grades. Firstly, I am not in the teaching profession but this seems rather disrespectful to teachers to me, implying they will be unprofessional when arriving at their grades. Secondly, why would a school do that this year? To do so would surely only cause them issues next year if they've artificially inflated grades this year, as they then need to keep up that improvement or look like they're failing.

Lastly, if the statistical standardisation model works well then no worries, we're all happy. But given the extremely tight timescales to get this up and running, what happens if it doesn't work properly? What happens if say my daughter gets A/A/A from her school and that's adjusted down to C/C/C, based not on her GSCE 9s (which as I understand it will not be included in this model) but on the school being mediocre in past years. Is it not OK to suggest there should be an appeals process to challenge that?

@mbell666 I really don't think what you suggest about AAA becoming CCC will happen.

That would also be the kind of thing a school could appeal because it would look like a clerical error!

The GCSE's of the subject cohort are taking into account, not on an individual basis. So if your DD's year are stronger than previous years this will be reflected in higher grades than normal for A level.

In our school, where applicable (i.e. state school primary education) KS2 results have also been taken into account.

We submitted our grades in early May and they were crunched by FFT. Don't start me on the whys and wherefores of FFT but their results a week or so later were quite interesting. Each department worked independently, yet our predictions were all pretty consistent. Where there were possible anomalies, professional discussions were had and SLT have accepted the judgements of the subject specialists who have taught those students. We entered our subject grades this week onto the exam board website. We have been asked to keep copies of controlled assessment work done up to date in case further evidence is required.

To the OP, given the situation, I'm not sure what better scenario could happen. A friend with a DS in year 11 in another part of the country has been moaning to me about the unfairness of the system as her DS's mock results weren't that good because of blah blah... I suggested a calm letter to the Head/Head of Year explaining the circumstances (some were reasonable to be fair) and she has calmed down. Everyone is in the same situation in the country which she has now accepted. Her DS is now putting in some groundwork for his potential A level subjects and doing some other online courses for his own interest.

Op i don't know if this thread might reassure you at all www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/3917364-Ofquals-Consultation-on-GCSEs-and-A-Levels-2020
Titchy - no need to be so aggressive to the op.

Hi there, @mbell666 - we're just bobbing on here to say that we've moved this over to our Petitions topic.

Thanks.

Thanks AlpineSnow for the link to the thread, can't say it gives me much reassurance but I guess we'll all just have to keep our fingers crossed that everything works out OK in the end on 13 August. Only then I think we will know for sure.

I do think the outliers will be fine... The grades will stick out like a sore thumb enough for them to be reviewed and then they can see clearly that the teacher assessment will be correct based on GCSEs . Probably more difficult for my Dds school where more girls have chosen to do A levels rather than IB in the last two years... The IB students tend to be more academic and therefore you would expect a larger number of A*/As..... But hopefully it will all be OK... Its just a shame that any big spikes can't be looked at before awarding grades. I would have thought there was enough time to query with schools.

how about leaving a right of appeal in for the student in the same way there is every other year? Don't you think it's rather unfair to remove that??

The right of appeal in ordinary years that you refer to is only available to wealthy parents. My school only have about 10-15 appeals usually, as that is all that the school can afford to fund, so we use them where it will make most difference, where we think there's a chance of change, usually at the 3/4 or 4/5 boundary, mainly for English and maths.
I know schools in the wider area where a large proportion of their parents challenge every grade unless a 9 (or A* at A Level).

How on earth is that system fair?

A charge per paper not even per subject; the costs are prohibitive for many in my authority. Now that is an unfair system.