GCSE summer 2020 thread 6 - Carry on Corona Cohort, Further adventures aboard the Corona Charabanc.

[FoolsAssassin]

The summer of discovidtent for the Corona Cohort trudging on towards results day.
Ofqual have done them a little video to explain their results:

Please feel free to join us to see what twists the next bit has in store for us all.

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@piggywaspushed "What shocked me is that some students were failed"

But on that basis this year everyone would pass. I totally see the anguish at an individual level, and the great fears of our performers at weak schools but taking the cohort as a whole, surely one can't have 100% rates?

As it is the Scottish grade inflation has already been vast compared to the 2% proposed in England and that is before appeals - I suspect the overage could easily double. So where does that leave children from other years or countries competing against Scottish students?

I don't think the reporting helps - tones of shock and outrage that CAGs have been reduced when the Astar CAG rate is not far off double the recent average - surely they have to be adjusted ?

Having said which I don't know what the answer is to make it fair on an individual basis. The whole thing is such a mess

They aren't like for like comparisons ,a s a caveat because not all students do advanced highers. You can leave school and enter university with highers (the year before) or you can stay on and gather more highers, so AHs are hard and also done by the 'elite' as it were. That obviously doesn't remove your point about there being more here, just about the England to Scotland equivalent.

Paddington the dates are somewhere in an Ofqual press release : there are quite a few weeks for GCSE : I think end Sept. I'll see if I can find it.

I suppose I should have phrased that 'some students failed who had not been on track to fail'.

Of course , some will fail every year : we actually put some Us for GCSE and one for A Level in our CAGs. You would expect that person to be on the alert though : non submission of NEAs, dreadful attendance, previous failed exams...

I really don't envy the teachers having to do this process one bit. One would know that in for example a low set maths class a number would fail but to have to be the person who has to say, yes, those are the bottom four must be awful

The problem with the CAG/standardisation model is that it sounds reasonable at a national level, but clearly will throw up anomalies at an individual level. I think that's the main flaw with it really. Teachers had no way to distinguish between "barring absolute disaster this child will get a 5 every time" and "on a good day, if they'd revised thoroughly, this child might get a 5" - other than by using the ranking system, which instantly makes an individual dependent on the school cohort they are in and a statistical model. For my first example it would be unfair for the child not to get a 5, but in the second we might say it was ok to give the child a 4 if the standardisation ruled thus. But the model used might well throw up the opposite result.

If high achievers at a low performing school might be penalised, there will be low performing children in high achieving schools that do better than expected. We have some grammar schools nearby and they have 99% of children achieving 5-9 grades every year. If you happen to be at one of these schools, you know you will probably pass everything now even though you might not have done if you had sat the exam.

Scottish students should be happy with the AH results, which is the only one I have looked at. As well as the 20% comparative increase in A grades, there was an 11% increase in Bs and the "fail" rate went from 12.2% last year to 5.5%, so less than half as many. They are able to appeal if their grades were downgraded and their school can prove they should have got a higher grade.

Piggy are AH students the age of our Y13s? I hear that a lot of Scottish university students are 17, but is that because they left after Highers?

@BlueMarigold it certainly feels safer to be at a school with consistently high results, but it is likely that those students would have got good grades anyway. There is a high confidence level in the accuracy of a statistical approach in schools with consistent results, but much harder to get it right in schools with a wider spread and variable results.

Yes, AHs are final year of school but are 'optional'. They would be year 13 age (actually a little younger because of when Scottish kids start school).

That's why the girl who failed her French isn't as devastated as you would expect because she already had an unconditional uni offer based on her Highers. She was clearly a very able girl though! As she got an A for AH maths this year and an A for Higher Spanish,

She herself picked up on the issue of rank ordering students for MFL subjects when native speakers take all the top spots. This is something that was meant to be being adjusted this year in French and German in England, so made CAGs for those subjects really complicated.

Word on the street is there is a particular 'type' of school that over inflated results. Ofqual won't say what that is but I think it will come out in some sort of enquiry somewhere down the line.

Do you think it’s better to be a high performing student in an average school so you get ranked high, or a low performing student in a very good school so you are ranked bottom?

I am probably over analysing because I am anxious.

Genuinely, I don't know. I think it is best just to focus on he 'they are only GCSEs' mindset.

I have my own question, being a high performing subject in a 'meh' school! I don't know if Ofqual really looked at that kind of data. No one seems to know really....

It is what it is. I keep telling myself , otherwise the lack of control feels crippling.

I think it's worrying whatever situation you're in. Dd's friend at a comp was telling her that dd would be fine because 92% of grades are 7 plus at her school. But dd may be ranked in the bottom few in a couple of subjects, which she hadn't really focused so much on (e.g.Maths - never revised!) and now thinks she may be one of the obligatory few 5s or 6s, when she was pretty sure she'd get at least a 7 with decent revision and she got 7s in the mocks.

I know she does have a certain advantage in being at a high achieving school - but I think that advantage would have played out anyway in a normal year as the school's results are remarkably consistent year on year.

Of course, every year at any school there are students who underperform in exams. I remember the English teacher telling us that they request the exam papers of any 6s because they wouldn't anticipate getting any 6s, and usually it's because they students haven't written enough. The difficult thing this year is they're having to decide who would end up in that position, where in reality all the girls at this particular school should get at least a 7 if it were based on ability and consistent performance.

My conclusion is it would be better if we had a time machine and could be in 2021 when this is is a memory and we are comfortably be onto next stage 😁

I am with Piggy on this - GCSEs will not be massively important to our lot as long as they are roughly right, good enough to progress to the next stage of their plan and they pass maths and english. They may not get quite what they would have got in a normal year, but it will be rare for subjects to be adjusted down from CAG by by more than 1 grade and on the whole the grades will be more generous than usual so there will be more winners than losers.

DS2 concerned that A levels will be his first external exams and seriously considering full set of AS levels for the proper exam experience (he is so much more mature than his big brother!).

I wasn’t worried before, but I have started to stress recently.
DD needs a 5 in maths to be able to move school. Before mocks, and afterwards, she was consistently getting a 6s and sometimes 7s, but she got a 5/6 in the mocks (2 papers, both written by the HoD).
Additionally, she was in the bottom set maths group, not because she needed to be there, but because she asked to be because it was very small and meant she could ask for help when needed. In that group, it’s possible one or 2 may fail, and the others were due to sit the standard papers, whereas DD was entered for higher.

I’m worried that DD will be placed at the bottom of a grade ranking, just because she’s in the lower group. Or maybe she’ll be placed at the top of the ranking for that group (where the grades expected will be lower?)?
Is it possible for CAG to be moderated by 2 grades? If her CAG is 6, could she end up with a 4?

Ooh, just found this thread. Hope there's room for one more.

My eldest DD is year 11. I think her grades will be mediocre. She hadn't really worked for ever the past two years and had only really started getting her head into the game at February.

Her predicted grades were 6/7s, but at parents' evening a few of the teachers had said she was more than capable of getting 8s if she pulled her finger out, and a couple had said with the right paper, on the right day, she could get a 9. If she had sat the exams, I think she would have got mostly 7s, with a couple of 8s and a few 6s. However, based on CAGs, I think she'll get mostly 6s with a few 7s.

But I've told DD not to worry about them. She's off to 6th form College abs they are offering her a place based on her CAGs, so she's actually enrolling before her results are out.

She just needs to decide her subjects now. She wants to study physiotherapy at uni. Her main subjects are decided (Biology, psychology and Core Maths) but she has her last choice to make. She was going to do History but hasn't enjoyed the prep work. So is now thinking of Sociology or Business Studies instead. Not sure if she's only thinking of Sociology because I teach it, so she thinks I can help her with it... or what. Possibly Business because she might have her own practice when she's older. No idea if she'd enjoy it though!

The stress is ageing me though.

It is possible but very unlikely that CAGs will move by 2, there were some in Scotland according the report, but very few, and GCSEs less likely to move 2 grades than A levels as they are bigger cohorts so more students would have to be moved to have a 2 grade effect.

Her other school may be offering a test is she is not awarded a 5 if the school predicted at least 5.

The schools should definitely not have ranked by set, there should be overlaps.

God this is awful.

I'm trying to tell myself that there are always kids who suffer from grade boundaries being super high and therefore don't get the grades they expected. Or have a bad day and do worse than expected. The problem with this is that it seems so much out of our hands and in the lap of a computer algorithm.

I'm suppose to get a blood pressure test...think a wait a couple of weeks!

DS said he was excited about getting his results (had to check he wasn’t being sarcastic) but seems he is looking forward to it.

Not sure how he will do but I think should be OK. Am keeping my fingers crossed for that anyway

I am glad I found this thread because even though I can’t do anything about it, I feel less alone.

Deep down, I know it will all come out in the wash but this is my oldest child and I feel bad for her.

I am also worried that not having experienced a real exam, it may suddenly make them anxious when doing A-levels for real.

I know DD will be fine...but she's got her heart set on doing well in a couple of subjects and I just hope it comes through for her. Mocks etc would suggest it will, but the downgrading is a concern.

Dd said yesterday she will cry if she gets a 6! And she doesn’t want to cry because she wants it to be a happy day seeing all her friends!

She knows it’s ridiculous to cry over a 6 and we certainly won’t mind - and she knows too that it won’t matter in a few months... but so many of her friends will get straight 9s! Ah well, it’s a good life lesson for them all - life isn’t fair.

The 20th will come round in no time, we’ll all spend a few days dwelling on the results then it will all be about sixth form/college.

I remember a friend saying that her daughter felt a bit disillusioned after her GCSE results (all 8/9s) because once she started sixth form they were completely forgotten, it was back to the grindstone and she started to wonder what was the point. I think as a result she got a bit less stressed in sixth form - but is still sitting on an Oxbridge offer!

@FoolsAssassin

My conclusion is it would be better if we had a time machine and could be in 2021 when this is is a memory and we are comfortably be onto next stage 😁

Yes definitely!

I think we can worry all we like now but nothing will change. DS hadn't put in his final push, is a high achieving student in a 'meh' school, he probably won't get what he would have got if he'd actually sat the exams having had a chance to solidify a few grades but he should do ok to move on. Annoying but there it is, I am trying (sometimes successfully) not to stress about it.