GCSE and A-level guidance has been issued

[TheletterZ]

The guidelines for the GCSE and A-levels has now come out.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877842/Summer_2020_grades_for_GCSE_AS_A_level_EPQ_AEA_in_maths_-_guidance_for_teachers_students_parents.pdf

Main points, schools will come up with the grades using their professional judgement and performance in exams, assessments, in class etc...
They will then rank the students in each grade band.
This will then be subject to statistical analysis by ofqual and might be adjusted.
The results will be published ahead of the usual schedule and certificate will look exactly the same as any other year.

Bit

I'm concerned about the bit about prior achievement in schools.

Ds moved secondary schools because his first couldn't give a shit about send law. I then won at tribunal whilst at new school and he got an ehcp. He's managed to really improve the last 2 years with the right support and also because his MH has been stronger.
Also there's some anomalies over the years when he's had teachers who don't really understand asd and so he's not achieved well.

His mock results and all assessments in school he's done the past year or so are way above his predicted grades. I'll be bloody pissed of if they ignore what he's achieving now frequently and consistently.
Especially because in one particular subject he got highest marks in mocks of all year group and a 9. His year 9 science teacher predicted him a 4 and said he'd never learn or achieve because he couldn't socially engage with his peers and his handwriting is illegible.

I'm sure they have a solid system - they'll have to because everyone will be scrutinising it closely.

But some of the statements do have a less clear and decisive feel about them.

Yes. It’s hard. But what else would you suggest in the current situation, if you were in charge? What would you have done differently? Taking into account the demographics and issues across the country and not just the needs and issues of your own child?

Was that aimed at me flying?
I haven't said I don't agree with the system but that if a child is currently achieving well and consistently at a certain level I would hope prior achievement from years ago wouldn't pull the grade down.
The same as parents who are saying their child didn't take mocks seriously and have worked hard since are worried they'll count for too much.
My ds worked hard for mocks and proved a lot of people wrong about their assumptions of what he could achieve.

I would like to think that the child's current and demonstrable levels are what the teacher will use. If a kid did well in mocks, and other year 11 tests a teacher would be totally unreasonable in ignoring all that evidence and only using their year 10 work. Exams officers and I think senior leaders will have to sign off predictions so hopefully assessments will be genuine.

If a child has been doing really well in mocks and assessments then there is zero, and I mean zero chance that they will revise that grade downwards based on what their Y9 science teacher said about them.

Sorry @itsgettingweird, we cross posted! No, not at you, that was to aut0replenish. (FWIW I also have a DS who has achieved far more during Y9/10/11 than could have been predicted at KS2 SATS - due to late DX of SEN and support being put in place - I hear you).

Thing is for every DC who has struggled in more recent years but did well in KS2 SATS there will be another who did less well in KS2 SATS but has done better in more recent years. So hopefully the process will be robust enough to produce fair grades for both scenarios.

Don’t know what I’d suggest but just hope they remember they’re kids not adults with life experience and there is scope for taking into account the shitty realities of life for some.

So we can discount Sats/entry assessments and subsequent predictions you constantly get referenced to having any involvement at all? We were looking at what little info we have and trying to second guess possibly grades and thus what to focus on.Like sticking the tail in the donkey blindfolded.

On

Personally I'm delighted by the guidance, dd has a physical disability, and on a bad day adjustments and extra time still wouldn't do her justice, her grade would be below her usual working/ predicted level. The only reason we haven't been incredibly concerned is because even on a bad day she'd still get the grades for a-level and she's not planning on anything like medicine where gcse grades might matter.

The only thing that confused me is the statement that in the event of resits both grades would stand. How does that work? Johnny was awarded a 4 but got a 7 in the exam doesn't look good for the school, Johnny was awarded a 7 but got a 4 in the exam doesn't look good for Johnny.

This is from the Ofqual guidance for heads of centre/heads of departments/teachers:

"Where disabled students have an agreed reasonable adjustment (for example a reader or scribe), or other students have an agreed access arrangement, the judgement should take account of likely achievement with the reasonable adjustment/access arrangement in place. Special consideration requests, in the event that a student is unable to take an assessment or suffers a traumatic event that might affect their performance, will not apply this summer. Instead judgements should reflect how the students would have performed under ordinary
circumstances. Where illness or other personal circumstances might have affected performance in mock exams, centres should bear that in mind when making their judgements."

That, to me, suggests that they will have scope for taking into account the realities of life. Only time will tell how it applies in practice though.

Flyingpandas thanks. And also noble I do get quite defensive at times because years of fighting for ds to reach his potential any suggestion all those years he struggled having an impact now when he's overcome it gets me in a right hump!
But the other end of the scale he got a 2 in his English language mock. So despite schools constant reassurances they can get him to a 4 I am not holding much hope they'll be able to evidence this or convince any exam board he'd have got more than a 3! But he was expecting to have to retake it again and again any way!

Oh that’s reassuring Panda.

So we can discount Sats/entry assessments and subsequent predictions you constantly get referenced to having any involvement at all?

They are irrelevant on an individual level, they are important on a cohort level. Schools should be using them to judge what the distribution of grades should look like, not what individual pupils will be getting.

I do hope the teachers doing the grading aren't aware of what grades individual pupils need for university offers or else it could influence them to rank in such a way that the maximum number of students get their uni places
So, for example teacher considers pupils X and Y to be more or less equal at grade A however
Pupil X needs AAA for uni entrance and pupil Y just ABB
Teacher might be tempted to rank X higher than Y on the basis that if Y gets lowered by Ofqual to a B it won't jeopardise their uni chances?
But that wouldn't be fair on Y, if that was the only reason they were ranked lower?

itsgettingweird, we have been through a similar experience with DD. She has ADHD and moved school in year 8 because the local secondary ignored all SEN law. She had a slow start in years 8 and 9 but started to blossom towards the end of year 10, and got 9/9 in science mocks, with the highest mark in the year for biology. Between year 10 summer exams and January mocks, she went up 2 grades in a couple of subjects, and even since the mocks, her improvement has been exponential; not because she is in any way a last minute crammer , but because it’s taken until this year for it all to come together (and mocks were the first time she’d been given the full access arrangements she qualifies for).

Remember too, that you can't place too much emphasis on Mocks. Different schools sit them at different times, include different elements of the course and some purposely mark them harshly or generously, depending on what the exact purpose of them is in their school. So a L8 in a Jan mock this year, doesn't necessarily mean there will be a L8 in the summer.

It is right that teachers have to take a holistic view based on a wide range of evidence from across the course. It would be wrong to base it on one piece of evidence which isn't common to all schools. It is also right that students and parents and schools cannot know with certainty what the outcomes in the summer will be now. Parents on this thread would like to walk away with a formula to know exactly what their child will be awarded in the summer - but they won't know that info until the summer, in the same way they wouldn't have known it if exams were to be sat. When exams are sat, then later decisions are made about grade boundaries and considerations given to the ability level of the overall macro year group etc. The same will be done this year, filtered down to the school wide level in lieu of exams.

Will results be more 'inaccurate' this year? Probably not I'd say. However, people will think they are more inaccurate. Lots of A Level students won't get their UCAS predicted grades and decide that means the grades they are awarded are unfair because they were going to pull it out of the bag for the exam. But remember that UCAS predictions are very generously inflated and 75% of grades are below these. Students see this every summer, but this summer will just think the system has cheated them a bit......as will the parents, who were also convinced that the big effort that was about to start woukd have significantly boosted the marks. And then there is the unreliable marking of exams. We all know how many are put in for remarks and how many are changed, but also that those from disadvantaged backgrounds lose out here because they can't afford to pay for remarks or do t challenge automatically as many fee paying schools do.

This year, for the vast majority of students (and lots of people will probably decide they are in the small minority) their results will be more whatbis expected and less surprising this year. Instead of the outcome being based on 1 or 2 days and whether a paper suited them or not, it will reflect their overall performance. That doesn't mean performance in 1 mock that they didn't know would count, or 1 essay that unknowingly turned out to be vital, but across all the work they have done for over 18 months. That's a a dream for many students. There's scope for a weak essay or weak mock and if performance has overall been very good, then the result will be too. Schools know that between now and exams, students try hard (most of them) and boost their grades, if not to the UCAS level, to much closer to it.....and they will consider that too. REmember the grade teachers give won't be on 20 March or on the date of the Jan mock, but the result they think most likely if they had sat the exam in May/June, having finished the course.

So many parents are sure that their child is the clever but lazy one, who somehow did very little though the course but was going to ace it in the exam. Sadly, when the final result comes in, quite a lot of parents and kids will still believe that would have happened and blame the system. However, the reality is that for the vast vast majority, a holistic consideration of their performance and ability across the whole course does give a very good indication of final performance. Teachers are sometimes sunrises by how poorly some students do but less often surprised by someone turning out to be brilliant and pulling it out of the bag, that they never spotted before. In most cases, the teachers have got a good handle on the students.

For all theses reasons, I think that the results issued this summer will reflect what would have happened in the exams. Of course, statistically the results will because the government will make sure they do, to ensure comparability wi other years. That is very important. And then for each school, they will be comparability to previous years too, unless this cohort is significantly more or less clever than the previous ones. That's what the exams would deliver too.

With A Levels, as always, many will get a bit lower than their UCAS predicted grades and their first choice uni might still take them or they will go to their 2nd choice, or they will get a place through the large Clearing system.

@titchy - we all want the best for our students. Historically predicted grades have always been positive- what that student would get with hard work and a good day in the exams. After two years we have lots of evidence and the rank order idea very sensible. I agree with @wombatchocolate totally.

Really helpful post @WombatChocolate.
Thank you

I agree with much of that Wombat and it is reassuring in some ways but I do feel kids generally know when they’ve done badly, enough or well in an exam and can plan accordingly. That heads up across the full range of subjects has obviously been taken away this year.For many who have had a mixed year or two they’re now very much in the dark and left clueless as to what to do in this scenario.5 months is a long time to sit and worry with little info or advice.

Also for many it’s not about thinking there would be a sudden effort, for some it was always there but they were wresting with issues far bigger than exams. In my dd's case she never missed school or homework, was always working hard at MH and subjects as best she could but the external issues had an impact on grades at times which are all over the place. Honestly we could choose all manor of possible future grades right across her subjects from the little info we have. Grades range from high to low.Given the pressures on teens and teen MH figures I suspect there are a fair few in a similar boat. She had worked hard at both exams and MH, she had a plan she’d started early,was making progress and it was beginning to bear fruit. It’s so frustrating that it was all for nothing.

I’m in no way criticising teachers but this crappy situation has made me realise that in this era of continuous data crunching and reporting to parents much of it is pointless for some parents. Those predicted grades from Sats continuously quoted and referred to- pointless. Those over changing grades from this, that and the other- meaningless. We’re clueless as to what to expect. Maybe it’s just our scenario and others are in a more informed position- I hope so. Maybe something positive could come out of this and parents could be subjected to less meaningless data in the future. I really do hope this is the best case scenario for all. I guess only time will tell.Apologies if I sound negative but I have a previously very fragile child and a long few months ahead with no idea what will happen at the end.

I agree with the overall approach and clearly looking at mocks, assessments , class work, coursework, homework will give the best overall view of a pupil’s achievement.

What concerns me is how schools manage the ranking. So, how will this work for pupils taught in sets? Say you have a pupil in set 1 maths predicted an 8 and another in set 2 predicted the same grade, will The pupil in set 1 be ranked higher just because of their set? Won’t teachers just advocate for their own pupils? I’m guessing the head of department will get the final say, so What if they then pull their preferred pupils up the rankings? Plus, if the different sets have done different essays, or one class did as timed essay in class and the other dud as homework, how will the scores be comparable across the year?

Presumably we will never see the detailed guidance given to schools, but is is clear from what they have said that being lower in the ranking could mean the possibility of a grade being moderated up or down. I just can’t get my head around how the schools do this without raw exam scores.

One thing's for sure: teachers will be quoting 'what happened in 2020' for years to come when telling kids why it's important to treat mocks like the real thing.

No, they will compare results on common assessments like mocks to decide whether the set 1 grade 8 should be ranked higher than the set 2 grade 8.

we will never see the detailed guidance given to schools

It’s the same as what has been given to parents, you can see it on the gov website. What isn’t being given is the statistical calculation that will be done on the teacher predicted grades to moderate them.

Aren’t mocks there to learn from? Also those that took them before Christmas having not covered the whole syllabus can’t treat them like the real thing because they’re not. They vary in content from school to school, the real thing doesn’t.Hence them not being the only thing taken into consideration.

Really not liking this that’ll teach em approach. Mocks aren’t the real thing. Now is not the time to be wagging fingers at kids going through a pretty shitty time.

Very true snowegg.

I thought about that noblegiraffe, but then that links back to when mocks were done and will be detrimental to many pupils who have pulled up their performance since.

Who knows what other weighting will be applied, based on schools previous performance etc. Again, if a school had an unusually strong cohort, they could end up getting moderated down. I guess we have no choice anyway, but I suspect many will be left frustrated and scrambling to sit exams at short notice.